Weasley's Ten
by Crius
Summary: Ten people, one target, three chances. Will Harry be in or out...of love? HPxGW! Stupidly noble!Harry. Hopefully much hilarity.
1. Introducing The Crew

**Weasley's Ten**

Summary: Harry Potter is in love. The problem? He's trying to deny his feelings, and for typically assinine reasons too. His friends, fed up of his lovesick act, cook up a few harebrained schemes to force him to admit his feelings.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. No copyright infringement is intended. Just a harmless piece of fun, but please don't reproduce this without asking me first!

Pairings: HarryxGinny, RonxHermione

Warnings: Chapters 3and 4 contain content that is of a vaguely sexual nature, you have been warned! There is no explicit imagery, just a rather strong dollop of innuendo and/or euphemism. Hopefully this is fine for the rating, this warning is just to cover me in case there are any serious prudes out there who might take exception.

Author Note: Despite the similarity in names and taglines to a certain movie, no casinos will be robbed during this fic. This is just pure, unadulterated Harry-torture because I'm an evil, evil fanfic author :).

Author Note 2: Gah! As aptly pointed out by a review I just received from MissMaurauder4487 (many thanks for reviewing by the way) I have neglected to explain the conditions of this AU, and so lots of people are acting rather off. First of all, forget about Harry having had a relationship with Ginny before. Assume that although he noticed her in Sixth year, he refrained from getting together with her because he was afraid of her becoming a target (that seems quite in character for Harry if you ask me), so they have no history together and therefore Harry only has his own, apparently now unrequited, feelings to go by, and what with his lack of self-confidence when it comes to girls, I think it quite likely that he would hover on the sidelines permanently in that kind of situation unless someone gave him a good kick up the rear. Also highlighted is Malfoy's totally out of character behaviour. I'm partially justifying this by the fact that he got saved from death twice in the Final Battle by Harry, so he owes Harry a debt, like Wormtail did, and is trying to pay it off now in this way rather than having it hang over his head for Harry to call in at another time in a totally unpredictable way. The other part is that he wants his old sparring partner back. I've seen a lot of schoolboy rivalries turn out this way, with opponents coming to respect each other a lot, and continuing to wrangle at one another more to keep themselves sharp than because they actually hate each other. That was the sort of attitiude I was going for in Malfoy's thoughts right at the end of this chapter. Whether Harry reciprocates this respect is up to you, but I'd like to think that the Final Battle matured them both to the point where they could get over their old dislike of one another in order to get along for the final year of school. The final major deviance from canon is the fact that Fred is still counted among the living. I don't really have a good justification for his continued survival except that Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes are integral to plan no.2, and if Fred were dead then I doubt George would be in any sort of mood to help out in a scheme of this sort. Just please humour me and assume that Fred got out of the way, or was healed by Madam Pomfrey. Please?

Now that that's all done, on with the show...

* * *

Ron Weasley surveyed the circle of people that sat with him in a deserted classroom not far from the Gryffindor Tower. The group was quite large, but carefully selected for their talents, and they were all united by a single purpose: to force Harry Potter to confess his deep attraction for Ron's sister Ginny before he drove them all into insanity. On his left was Hermione who, as his own girlfriend and Harry's other best friend, could hardly be left out of something like this, but she too was more than fed up with Harry's actions, or rather his significant lack thereof, since the start of this year and completely agreed that something needed to be done.

Next to her sat Ron's brothers, Fred, George, and Percy. Bill and Charlie would have been there too, except that they were both working abroad at the moment. They had, however, expressed their support for this little group, and stated that if Harry was still being stubborn by the time they were done with their jobs in Egypt and Romania respectively, then they would come back and provide their full assistance. Percy was acting as their smokescreen with the staff, since their ultimate plan was rather drastic, they would need to direct official attention elsewhere should it become necessary. Thus in his capacity as Ministry liaison to Hogwarts, he would, if needed, call for a full scale inspection of the school's teaching courses from first year to seventh year. They hoped that this could keep the entire staff tied up for the duration of perhaps even an entire weekend if they really needed it, and thus out of their hair. Fred and George were present because their talent for pranks was unparalleled, as was their knowledge of the castle. They would be responsible for implementing some of the more drastic aspects of any plans that the group had come up with, not to mention that some of their joke products, especially the love potions, might well come in very handy.

Next to those three sat Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. Hermione had initially been rather disgruntled by their inclusion, considering Ron's history with Lavender, but she had to admit that no one else came close to that pair's knowledge concerning romance and makeovers, not to mention that they had agreed not to charge at all for the use of products from the beauty salon they had opened together on graduating from school. Their responsibility in all of this was to make sure that Ginny looked absolutely stunning at all times, without making it obvious that that was what they were doing. So far they had done a good job. Harry's eyes had followed Ginny everywhere for the last few weeks now, and Ron could have sworn that he had started drooling on a couple of occasions. Nevertheless, Harry remained adamantly in denial about his own feelings for her.

Next to them sat Luna Lovegood, present for her moral support, and because she could provide them with a back-up distraction for the staff if they really needed one, although she had kept the precise nature of this distraction a carefully guarded secret. She had told Hermione, and Hermione had assured them all that it would be most effective if they needed it to be.

Next to Luna sat a rather surprise addition to their group. Ron had very nearly fainted dead away when _Draco Malfoy_ had suggested that Ron really needed to get Harry together with his sister. Malfoy had been much friendlier since they returned to Hogwarts to complete their final years, especially since the trio had saved his life twice during the battle, but it was still a great shock to the system that _Malfoy_ was volunteering to participate in any activity calculated to make Harry happier, even if he did claim that the real reason he was doing this was because Harry was so wrapped up in mooning over Ginny that Malfoy no longer had anyone challenging to pit himself against. Nevertheless the blond-haired Slytherin had already proven himself useful in distracting Harry from their plans with well-placed insults and fights. Distracted by Ginny Harry might be, but Malfoy was an expert at pushing his buttons, and had neatly and smoothly occupied Harry's attention with arguments and fights at opportune times when the group needed to ensure that Harry would not stumble across their planning sessions or their other preparations.

The final member of their group was, naturally, the most important member of all: Ginny herself. She was having the time of her life, especially since the boy of her dreams since she was ten could now no longer keep his eyes off her. Ron suspected privately that she might be a little disappointed when the chase was over, but since Harry had not yet shown any signs of cracking except a pronounced upswing in his 'discreet' mooning, he was sure that she still had plenty of time left to enjoy the whole affair. Besides, his sister was happier than he had ever seen her at the prospect of finally getting her man, and he could not begrudge her that. In fact if he had to he would beat the truth out of Harry to get them together, if he wasn't afraid that Ginny would hex him for damaging her beloved boyfriend-to-be.

"Alright," Ron said, calling them to order, "Does everyone know what they're supposed to be doing then?"

"No, Weasley," Malfoy drawled laconically, "Going over it for the fiftieth time just wasn't enough for me."

Ron clenched his fists. Malfoy may have been friendlier this past term, but he was still very, _very _annoying. Reminding himself that this time the Slytherin was working with them rather than against them, and that he had really been rather helpful in his own way, Ron forced his fists to open up again. Instead he chose to get his small revenge in another way.

"In that case, Malfoy," he said with saccharine sweetness, "You won't mind telling us the entire plan, will you?"

Malfoy shot him a glare, but it was half-hearted, like most of his hostility these days, more for show to protect his reputation than for actual malice.

"Tomorrow," he drawled in a thoroughly bored tone, "Weaselette there will be getting up bright and early to receive yet another makeover from our resident beauticians," he nodded towards Parvati and Lavender, "When she's fairly presentable, I shall be escorting her to Hogsmeade for a day of _fun and frolicking_," he sneered on those last three words, and made a disgusted face, "Potter is planning to remain holed up in Gryffindor tower for the day, claiming that he has a Potions essay to do, which is an outright lie since Professor Slughorn hasn't handed out a Potions homework to us since last week's lesson, but in reality intending to spend the day mooning after Weaselette in the privacy of his dorm. Fred and George will therefore be sneaking into Gryffindor tower at ten and dragging Potter out to Hogsmeade, supposedly to check out the new branch of their ridiculous joke-shop that has just opened in the village. They will leave the castle at ten thirty. Quite by chance, Weaselette and I shall be exiting the school gates at precisely the moment when Fred, George and Potter get there, no doubt sending Potter into fits of jealousy. Due to the high risk of being hexed at this point, I shall be donning one of Fred and George's Shield Cloaks for the journey to Hogsmeade. We will all proceed into Hogsmeade, whereupon, Weaselette and I will retire to Madam Puddifoot's teashop, favoured haunt of couples that are supposedly in love, while Potter, Fred and George go to the joke shop. After that, Weaselette and I shall wander around Hogsmeade in the affectation of a couple having a good time," once again Malfoy made a disgusted face, "naturally making certain that Potter gets the full benefit of our little charade. At the end of the day we will all return to Hogwarts, and Weaselette will, after ensuring that Potter is in the vicinity to benefit from it, shower me with profuse thanks for giving her a wonderful time while at the same time hinting heavily that she would have had an _even better_ time if I had been Potter. Assuming that Potter is not in fact thicker than two planks, he will be spurred into declaring his undying affection for Weaselette, and we will collectively be able to congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Is that all about right, Weasley?"

"It'll do," Ron said grudgingly, "At least you covered the main points."

The rest of the group watched the interplay with amusement. Ron and Malfoy still made out that they could not stand each other, but working together on this project had caused them to grow on each other a bit, and their wrangling was a little more good natured than it had been in the previous six years of school, not that this was really saying much, but it was better than nothing. Ron then turned to Hermione.

"Is everything set upstairs, 'Mione?"

"Yes, Ron," the bushy brown-haired witch replied primly, Ron's obsession with organisation on these things was wearing sometimes, but she loved that he cared enough to try and make sure that everything was perfect for trying to help his sister and best friend, "The charms are keyed to Fred and George's voices, so that no matter what they say the Fat Lady will think that it is the correct password. But you'll have to be pretty quick tomorrow. I couldn't create wards that would last too long for fear of triggering some of the castle's defences."

"Don't worry, Hermione," Fred assured her, "We'll get there on time."

"Nothing short of the end of the world could stop us," George agreed.

"Good," said Ron decisively, "Let's hope this one works."

On that point they all fervently agreed.

* * *

Harry Potter sat in the library at Hogwarts, brooding. Brooding was nothing new to him; he had spent a great deal of time brooding in the last six and a quarter years. The subject of his introspection, however, was. In the past when he had brooded, it was generally on a certain recently vanquished Dark Lord, or some affiliate thereof. Now, however, with Voldemort destroyed, he had thought that he might have less to brood about. Fate, however, did not seem to think the same way that he did. Having disposed of the main source of his tribulations permanently, he had now been presented with another equally problematic figure to deal with, one Ginevra Molly Weasley. The nature of the problem was a bit different, after all Ginny was no Dark Lord. She was the wrong gender for that for a start, and besides an angel like Ginny would never touch the Dark Arts. She was too perfect to be like that. Nevertheless, if given the choice between solving his problems with Voldemort all over again from the start, or facing the problems he now faced with Ginny, he thought that he would take Voldemort any day.

With Voldemort it had been an open and shut case. Super evil guy, needs killing, only Harry can do it, so Harry does it, simple really. Well there had been a few more stages than that to it, for example getting to the point where Voldemort was actually capable of dying by destroying all those Horcruxes, but on the whole it had been fairly clear-cut. He knew what he had to do, and then he did it. With Ginny, however, he had absolutely no idea what the correct course of action was, caught as he was between his own desires and his fears. First off there was the fear of rejection. She could so easily just laugh in his face. Even if she had had a big crush on him before, she had gotten over that years ago, had even dated a whole string of other guys in the last five years. Then too there was the fact that he was woefully inadequate for the position of Ginny's boyfriend. Ever since the defeat of Voldemort, he had ceased to be the Boy-Who-Lived, left behind the mantle of the Chosen One that had defined him for so long and become Just Harry, and frankly Just Harry was simply not good enough. Just Harry had half way decent school marks, whereas the object of his desire was so clever that she had mastered the Bat Bogey hex when she was just nine years of age. Just Harry was okay looking, whereas the object of his desire was the most beautiful creature ever to walk the face of the planet. Just Harry could barely hold up his end of a conversation, whereas the object of his desire could chatter and joke wittily for hours on end. In fact Just Harry was the absolute pinnacle of mediocrity, while the object of his desire was about as stupendous as one person could get whilst still being human, although sometimes he had his doubts about that last part, sometimes he really did believe that Ginny was an angel newly descended to earth.

Anyway, the upshot was that Harry was sure beyond reasonable doubt that Ginny could do a lot better than himself, and being so clever she probably knew it too, which was the main factor in problem number one. Unfortunately these quite obvious facts could not change the fact that he loved her so much it hurt. He missed her when she walked out of the room, and when he envisioned the worthy man that was not him standing beside an ecstatically happy Ginny as they met, dated, fell in love, got married, had kids and so on and so on, he felt a yawning pit open up in him. He had therefore compromised between his own desires and the right thing to do and settled himself into the role of close friend, and told himself that that was all he would ever have. He could not dispel his feelings altogether, but he limited himself to discreet glances when no one else was looking and the occasional pleasure he got out of seeing her eyes light up in happiness at him. He would, he vowed, keep his feelings hidden for the rest of his life, allowing Ginny to have the kind of life she deserved, unencumbered by the futile lusting of yesterday's news.

Despite this resolution, however, he could not, on the odd occasion, help but indulge himself in wild fantasies in which Ginny declared her undying love for him. He knew it did him no good to think that way, since it was more likely that Minerva McGonagall would break down and confess that Severus Snape had been her secret lover for their entire professional careers, an event that ranked _well _below the likelihood of hell hosting an ice-skating party tomorrow. Tonight was one of those occasions. He knew he ought to be doing his Transfiguration essay, and he really was trying, but the rather realistic daydream of Ginny's whispered 'I love you' in his ear was very distracting.

When he finally finished the last two inches of his essay, about twenty minutes later, it was seven o'clock. Dinner was over, but a goodly number of people were still wandering the halls since curfew was not yet in effect. Unfortunately for Harry and his mood, most if not all of them were discussing their plans for tomorrow's free day in Hogsmeade. A free day that he would not be attending himself. He had decided that Ron and Hermione did not need a third wheel on their second date beyond the confines of the castle, and so when asked, he had excused himself from their company for the day in favour of a completely fictitious Potions essay. Now he wished that he had had the presence of mind to come up with a better excuse. He had effectively sealed himself in the castle for the day to do his non-existent work, and as a result was rather jealous of everyone else. He would not even be able to while away the time by going flying for fear of someone seeing him and, accidentally or not, ratting him out to his friends. Instead he would have to remain in his dorm to maintain the pretence that he had, in fact, been doing work all day. He hoped that Ron and Hermione appreciated his sacrifices for their happiness, or, failing that, that they would make good use of the time given them and not waste it arguing.

Caught up in his own thoughts, he was rather surprised when he walked into the fairly solid form of Draco Malfoy.

"Watch where you're going, Potty," the blond Slytherin drawled with malice in his tone, "or did defeating the Dark Lord fry your brain so much that you're incapable of performing two simple tasks like walking and looking at the same time?"

"I think you'll find," Harry replied icily, "that Voldemort's brain is a good deal more fried than mine was, Malfoy, and I'm perfectly capable of looking where I'm going. You're just so insignificant that sometimes you escape my notice."

Harry walked off, fairly pleased with his comeback. Malfoy had mellowed since the end of the war, but that did not stop them from disliking each other intensely, and they still traded insults and hexes on a regular basis. That one would get Malfoy's back up for a couple of days at least so he would have to watch himself, but it was worth it for the satisfaction he got out of one-upping the Slytherin again.

For his part, Malfoy stared at the retreating form of the Gryffindor Golden Boy. He was impressed; Potter had actually managed to come up with a half-decent insult for once. He had half expected the boy to mutter something vague and not in the least insulting before meandering on his way. Nevertheless, the fact that such things were now the exception rather than the norm was dissatisfactory. They needed to get Potter and Weaselette together soon, or else he might well go mad from the withdrawal of good verbal sparring to be had in Hogwarts. Weasley was fun to bait, but his comebacks generally involved swearing and very little imagination, whereas Granger was too difficult to goad into a decent insulting match, she tended to move straight past insults and on to hexes. In short, he needed Potter back to his former self, to supply him with his fix. Shaking his head he turned to head for his own common room in the dungeons and prepared himself to pretend to woo the woman that Potter loved.

* * *

Funny? Awful? Dead in the water? Leave a review to let me know what you think.


	2. Jealousy and Red Hair

For disclaimer, summary and pairing notifications see chapter 1.

Author Note: I'm not entirely sure about this, I think I may have ended it prematurely and a bit too abruptly, but I just ran out of ideas, so please forgive me! I should also say that I have three 'episodes' planned for this story in total, but if anyone has a good idea for a scheme that they would like to see played out, PM me with it, and if I get any good ones, I can always extend the story.

* * *

Saturday dawned, and at a quite ungodly hour for anyone who was not a milkman or a postman, occupations that were fairly scarce in the vicinity of Hogwarts, a loud crash was heard in the Gryffindor seventh year girls' dormitories as the door to Ginny Weasley's dorm was thrown open with enough force to waken the dead. Ginny jumped wildly and nearly snatched up her wand to hex whoever was invading her room. On seeing Lavender and Parvati, however, she smiled and put the wand down on her vanity again. 

"Morning girls," she said brightly to the two young women who looked understandably quite shocked to find their friend already out of bed and wide awake at such an early hour. Then a look of understanding passed between them and they both sighed softly but deeply. Although not dissatisfied with their current lives, both witches wished that they could find someone to love and love them in the way that Harry and Ginny loved each other, which was why they were doing everything in their power to ensure that the star-crossed couple got together.

The two beauticians got to work, sitting Ginny down in the chair in front of her vanity. Two waves of two wands summoned a veritable mountain of cosmetics, foundation, eye shadow, blush, mascara, lipstick, skin-invigorating potions, hair treatments and on and on. Ginny sat patiently as they did their work. While she enjoyed looking stunning at all times, sometimes it was a lot of work, but if it got her Harry then it would all be worth it.

* * *

Several hours later a similar crash to the one that had earlier echoed through the girls' dormitories was heard in the boys dormitories of the Gryffindor tower. This time however, the intruders were Fred and George Weasley, and unlike Lavender and Parvati, their victim was most definitely still in bed. Harry Potter leapt up, wand in hand and half the Reductor curse out of his mouth before he realised what was happening. He closed his mouth, biting off the rest of the curse, but did not lower his wand. His face was like a thundercloud as he squinted at the grinning twosome standing in his doorway until his fumbling free hand found his glasses and maneuvered them onto his face, at which point they came into sharp focus. He had wanted that extra hour of sleep, it would have cut into the time he would spend being terminally bored. 

"Ron's gone already," Harry informed the twins peevishly, "Just leave me in peace."

Harry did not like the look that passed between the twins then. They were up to something, he could feel it.

"Actually Harry…" Fred began

"It's you we came to see," George continued without a break.

"You see we've just got ourselves a branch in Hogsmeade…"

"And we thought our silent partner might want to come and check out the premises for himself."

"Make sure his money is well spent and all that."

At that moment, if asked in the proper manner, Harry might well have taken up worshipping the ground Fred and George walked on. All thoughts of suspicion flew out of his head now that he was confronted by a golden excuse to go to Hogsmeade after all, and still leave Ron and Hermione alone together for the day, and he would take it without hesitation.

"I'll be down in fifteen minutes," he told the pair, a smile now on his face at the rather more interesting new prospects that the day now held. His smile might well have faltered somewhat if he had seen the look that passed between the twins, a look that normally promised a great deal of mayhem for law-abiding citizens to deal with, but in this case was more for the fun that they would be able to have watching Harry go through his day.

Harry rushed through his morning routines, throwing on a set of casual clothes, good ones now that he could buy his own things and not have to worry about what the Dursleys would say, and adding his cloak to ward off the mid-November chill. Twenty-five minutes later, after a fairly quick breakfast, Harry and the twins were making their way out of the main doors of the castle and down the path to the great gates that barricaded the entrance to the school grounds with their stone boar guardians. There was frost on the ground so their descent was fairly careful, and for a minute or two the twins worried that they might be late and miss their important rendezvous at the gates. Their fears proved baseless, however, as in front of them they watched two figures, one a redhead and the other blond pass through the gates. The twins, knowing exactly who the couple were, and being slightly behind Harry on the pathway, grinned at each other again. For them the fun was just about to begin.

Harry, on the other hand, was completely unsuspecting and squinted at the couple. He recognised Ginny at once, her red mane quite unmistakeable to his well practiced eye, not that he had spent loads of time looking at it, mind you, it was just that it was very distinctive. The boy she was with, however…he had the feeling that he was familiar, but he could not quite place him from behind. He did not recall Ginny mentioning a boyfriend at the moment, but a girl as pretty as she was never short of admirers, so this was probably just one of those many admirers whom she had chosen to favour with her company for the day. Harry briefly succumbed to the far-fetched idea that she might so favour him if he asked it of her, then reality intruded again as he nearly slipped on the pathway, dispelling the image. He reminded himself firmly that here and now was not the place for such ideas, _especially _not with Fred and George in such close proximity. If he showed any sign of desire for their sister he would probably be dead or castrated, or both, faster than he could blurt 'I love you'. Instead he focussed on the boy with her, trying to figure out who he was. The answer was dancing just out of reach, teasing and tormenting him. He knew he knew it, it simply refused to enter the forefront of his mind and be examined in the light of full consciousness.

The answer hit him with the force of a ten ton anvil dropped from a fifty mile height when the boy in question turned his head to look at something to their right, the opposite side of him to the one Ginny was standing on, and Harry was confronted by the unmistakeable profile of Draco Malfoy. Harry's brain ran full tilt into a solid brick wall at that point and it was only inertia that kept his legs moving and thereby hopefully concealing his spinning thoughts from observers, i.e. Fred and George. Ginny Weasley and _Draco Malfoy_??!! Harry's first thought, once he recovered the ability to form coherent thoughts, was that this was some bizarre nightmare and that he was still in bed in his dorm. A swift pinch to the palm of his left hand by the fingers of his right, however, disproved this theory. The movement of his hands did not go unnoticed by Fred and George, who were on the point of cracking up already, and this show was hardly even started! Imaginatively gruesome ways to kill Malfoy skittered across Harry's consciousness, and his right hand started twitching in the direction of his pocket, where his wand lay. He was interrupted in the middle of a particularly interesting visualisation involving Malfoy hanged by the neck from the stone arch of the school gateway by a rope composed of his own intestines, when Ginny turned her own head to look up at her companion. If Harry had been surprised before, his mind was now absolutely boggled, because Ginny actually looked happy to be in the company of the blond Slytherin. Harry felt as though he had been dropkicked in the stomach as he watched the sweet, dimpled smile that graced Ginny's perfect features. She was with _Malfoy_ and she was _happy_ about it, almost _ecstatic_ judging by her expression. The void that opened up in his heart at that moment was not so much a yawning pit as a _bottomless black hole_, for his emotions. Ginny Weasley, it appeared, was in love with Draco Malfoy. He wanted to howl in denial. He wanted to cast the Blinding Curse on himself, to extinguish the sight in front of him, no, better yet, he wanted to stab both of his eyes out. His world had come to an end. He wanted to find a deep hole, crawl into it and Avada Kedavra himself out of his misery. He had steeled himself for the future boyfriend, but of all the people Ginny could have picked, why did it have to be _Draco Malfoy_?

Fred and George were growing slightly concerned by the expressions that were flitting across Harry's face. They had expected the first few, shock, disbelief, anger and then positively murderous sentiment, and those had been highly amusing, especially the dark and decidedly deadly glare that Harry had fixed on Malfoy. They could practically hear the litany of painful and humiliating spells running through Harry's head, and had the tableau before them been real in the slightest then they would have been happy to add extensively to that litany. Now, however, Harry would not look out of place at a funeral with the woebegone and thoroughly depressed expression that was overtaking his face. The fight seemed to have gone out of him altogether, and now he just looked…_resigned_. Surely, _surely_, he did not _honestly_ believe that Ginny would choose Malfoy as her next boyfriend? Or that they themselves would let such a heinous crime on Malfoy's part go unpunished? It appeared he did, however, and the twins had to think quickly and do some damage control for their sister's too perfect acting skills.

Fred let out a positively evil chuckle.

"Look, Forge, a dead man."

"Too right, Gred, young master Malfoy has taken the bait, hook, line and sinker I believe."

Harry looked back at the pair, taking in their wicked half-grins, directed at the happy couple before them. Bait? Dead man? Was something going on here?

"Care to let me in on the joke?" he asked warily. He might not like Malfoy, alright he might _despise _Malfoy, but if Ginny was happy with him…the thought of defending their relationship made him want to retch, but Ginny's happiness was of considerably greater importance than his personal feelings.

"Let's just say, Harry, that Mister Malfoy there, is going to get the shock of his life later today. And it's all thanks to our dear sister really."

"We couldn't have done it without her," George stated proudly.

"Done what, exactly?" Harry asked.

"Harry, Harry," Fred admonished shaking his head slowly, "Half of the fun is the surprise factor. After we check out the new shop we can keep a close eye on Mister Malfoy, and you'll see what we're talking about in due time."

Harry was all set to pester them further, to ascertain whether he should warn Ginny and Malfoy off so that nothing would interrupt their date (Harry could not resist an inward shudder at having used the words Ginny, Malfoy and date in the same sentence, even if it was only in his head), but they were now within earshot of the happy couple, and Harry did not want to give the game away if Malfoy was going to be in for it with Ginny's approval. He would just have to prise it out of the twins later, before anything too drastic could happen, and then determine the appropriate course of action. In the meantime he plastered a smile to his face and prepared to undergo the mental torture of having to watch the girl of his dreams be happy in the presence of his worst enemy.

"Hi Ginny, Malfoy," he was proud of the reasonably bright tone of his voice. Inside he wanted to crawl away and die, but it did not show, "Nice day, isn't it?"

_Smooth, Potter, real smooth. Why not just leave your foot in your mouth permanently? _

"Potter," Malfoy acknowledged curtly with a slight nod. Harry supposed that in front of Ginny, Malfoy wanted to at least appear civil, otherwise he would surely have received a sarcastic comment. He decided that this could be fun, baiting Malfoy a bit while he was unable to respond.

Twenty minutes later, however, as they reached the small magical village, Harry's desire to kill Malfoy in very gristly ways, or to just crawl away and die, had only been slightly abated by the amusement value of the descent from the castle. He had been somewhat gratified to catch Ginny covering her mouth with her free hand to stifle giggles over the barbs he was flinging at Malfoy with complete abandon several times in the course of the walk. This satisfaction, however, had been rather diminished by the sight of Ginny pulling Malfoy along towards Madame Puddifoot's Teashop. He of course, did not put up much resistance to this idea, and now Harry was proceeding with the twins towards the new Weasley's Wizard Wheezes premises in Hogsmeade, which were situated just down the road from Zonko's, whose days as a viable business were now surely numbered, with endless images of Malfoy and Ginny snogging in the cosy teashop running through his head. He was starting to think that terminal boredom up at the castle might not have been so bad compared to this torture he was being put through by Fate, who must really hate him. Nevertheless he made a show of interest for Fred and George's sakes, genuinely impressed by their shrewd business savvy and the inventiveness of their products.

In this way, they passed the next two hours, with Harry suitably in awe of the genius of his business partners as they showed off an entire range of schoolboy pranks, sweets that provided interesting side-effects (Harry particularly liked the kind that instantly dyed the eater's hair to match their house-colours, or rainbow style if they were not of Hogwarts age), and other items of a generally frivolous nature that were good fun without being too dangerous or permanently detrimental to anyone they were used on. He was especially amused to see the punching telescope, which Hermione had encountered at the very start of the summer before last with such spectacular results, was now in full production, along with a similar line of fist-equipped potions scales and a variation of the theme which was snazzily named the 'Kicking Cauldron'. He could not deny that his money was being put to excellent use by the inventive troublemakers, and he was sure to tell them so.

At last, however, the show and tell session was at an end, and the twins suggested that they go for lunch in the Three Broomsticks. Harry was at once tense, although for an entirely new reason. The problem was that he was reasonably sure that Ron and Hermione would be in the Three Broomsticks for lunch as well, and he did not want their date to be interrupted, as it surely would be if they saw him walk into the pub. They would naturally insist on him joining them, and out of deference to his presence they would almost certainly _not_ engage in overly 'couple' activities such as snogging, holding hands or even just talking to each other about everything and nothing. When he pointed this out to the twins, however, in the hopes that they would at least be sympathetic towards their brother's budding romance with his best friend, they merely chuckled and told Harry that there was nothing to worry about, and that neither of the star-struck pair would notice if a whole horde of Harry Potter look-alikes descended on the Thee Broomsticks while they had each other. Harry supposed that for Ron this was a fair point, the guy was so wrapped up in his gorgeous and intelligent girlfriend that he would probably not notice or care if everyone else were dead (with good reason, Harry felt, Hermione was quite a catch really, and if it had not been for Ginny, and for Ron being his best mate, Harry might well have considered asking her out himself). Hermione, on the other hand, was a very observant witch, and she seemed to have some sort of sixth sense these days about his presence. If he did not know better, he would have said that she had her own version of the Marauder's Map keyed just to him, or that she had placed a tracking charm on him.

In the end, however, he allowed himself to be persuaded when the twins suggested that they go to Madam Puddifoot's instead. Given the choice between possibly interrupting Ron and Hermione on their date and almost certainly walking in on Malfoy's and Ginny's date, Harry would take Ron and Hermione any day. At least watching them get friendly from across the room would not be like sticking a knife into his heart and twisting. So they departed for the shop, Fred and George locking the door on the way out and then replacing the sign that covered the entire shop front, announcing the grand opening of the store in a week's time. They would have liked to have had it open for today's Hogsmeade visit, but it had proved simply impossible to move that quickly. Instead Professor McGonagall had declared a special circumstance and, under the stipulation that no products be sold to students which could be used to disrupt classes, had allowed the entire school another free day in Hogsmeade next weekend especially for the store opening.

The Three Broomsticks was pleasantly full, with students talking and laughing at tables in every direction. Madam Rosmerta managed to find them a small booth, however, in a corner of the pub just by the door from which they could observe relatively unnoticed, the goings on of the other patrons. Once they were seated and had given the attractive barmaid their orders for lunch and drinks, they sat back and people-watched. Almost immediately, Harry found Ron and Hermione, Ron's red hair acting as a beacon pointing him out in the crowd. They were sat together in a small booth mid-way along one wall, so close together that they were practically in each other's laps, and Harry was not-so-secretly delighted to see that the small circular table before them, in addition to plates and glasses, sported two smallish tea-lights and a red rose in a tall and slender vase. Ron, it appeared, was getting the hang of the idea of romance, and judging by the smile on Hermione's face, she was loving every moment of it. As he watched, Ron appeared to whisper something in Hermione's ear, and her smile took on a rather dreamy quality as she leaned in and captured his lips with her own. At that point Harry suddenly felt the strong urge to wolf-whistle, or possibly to get up on the table and point out the couple to the entire pub. His own non-existent love life was totally forgotten in his happiness for his two best friends in love and so obviously loving it. Fred and George followed Harry's gaze to see what had so interested their business partner, and broke out into identical grins when they saw the happy couple in mid-snog.

"Ahh young love," said Fred with an exaggerated sigh, "So sweet, especially for ickle Ronniekins."

"Too right, brother mine," George agreed, "At least now he's got the girl, our dearly beloved sibling may be slightly more bearable to be with for extended periods of time. Our Hermione should be able to make him grow up just a little bit."

Privately Harry could not deny that George had a point, but he did not let that stop him from jumping to Ron's defence, pointing out how happy they clearly were, and how obvious it was that it was Ron who was doing the driving today in their relationship, as evidenced by the candles and the rose. Unfortunately he let his voice get a bit too loud, and was forced to dive under the table when Ron and Hermione surfaced for a moment, each swearing that they had heard their best friend's voice. They spotted Fred and George across the room, but of Harry there was no sign, since he was under the table. They glowered at the red-haired twins, thinking that they had lost Harry, or failed to get him down to Hogsmeade, but the twins were quick to point downwards, attempting to indicate that Harry was hiding under the table. It took several tries and some rather inventive sign language, but eventually the twins managed to get their point across, and Hermione and Ron returned their attention to one another, happy that the plan appeared to be going smoothly, and completely unaware of the complications that had already occurred.

When they turned back to one another, Fred and George signalled to Harry that it was alright for him to come out, and he crawled back into his seat, still keeping an eye on his best friends, in case they should look that way again. He therefore very nearly missed the grand entrance of the couple that Fred and George had _really_ brought him down here to see. From their position by the door, however, it was impossible not to notice the frigid blast that occurred as the door opened and closed. Apparently the wind outside was picking up. Harry groaned inwardly when he saw that the newcomers were none other than Ginny and Malfoy, and steeled himself once more for another round of mental torture. Why, he wondered, couldn't they have stayed in the bloody teashop?

* * *

Meanwhile back at the castle, Minerva McGonagall was staring at an essay with a mixture of amusement tinged with a degree of worry. It was not every day that she had a premature submission from Harry Potter when it came to homework. Not that the boy was a bad student, not at all, but he was hardly a Hermione Granger when it came to getting his homework done. He tended to do it in time for the deadline and not a moment beforehand. She had therefore been pleasantly surprised to receive his latest Transfiguration essay (Evaluate the various theories concerning the origins of Conjured objects and the fate of Vanished or Disintegrated objects). She had been even more pleasantly surprised to find that for once Harry had put considerable thought and research into his work. In fact she might have suspected that he copied Miss Granger's essay, were it not for the additions to the essay that were the source of her current amusement and consternation. She seriously doubted that Miss Granger would insert the words 'I love you Ginny' into her essay every third or fourth line. 

The first time she had found the phrase slotted into the middle of a sentence she had thought that Harry was playing some sort of joke on her, and so had simply crossed it out with her own quill and carried on. After three repetitions she had started to suspect something fishy, especially since the essay had always picked straight back up, as though no interruption were present. Now she had gotten to the end and found no less than twenty-eight repetitions of 'I love you Ginny' in the essay and she was not sure whether to be amused or worried by Harry's obvious infatuation with the youngest Weasley child. On one level it was an ironic reversal of situation. Five years ago she had been forced to endure a great many instances of the words 'Harry Potter' enclosed in hearts on the essays of Miss Weasley as she wrestled with a schoolgirl's crush on the famous Boy-Who-Lived. Now the scales had swung completely the other way and it was clearly Harry who was now doing the pining while Miss Weasley was blissfully ignorant of his feelings. On the other hand she wondered if the level of Harry's infatuation might not be a cause for concern. Now that she came to think of it, the boy had been watching young Miss Weasley a great deal since the start of the year, and he had followed her to classes, and to many other places as well. In fact it virtually bordered on stalking, which might be a cause for concern if Miss Weasley was unaware of the effect she was having on the Boy-Who-Lived. She had, unfortunately seen awful things happen as a result of what initially seemed to be totally innocent adolescent infatuations, especially if the obsessed felt jilted by the object of their desires, and she certainly did not want any repeats of the more serious incidents.

She wondered whether it might well be prudent to speak to Harry concerning his feelings for Ginny Weasley privately, and soon, both for her peace of mind and for the sake of Harry's work. For while the essay was rather good, it would not do to have these continual digressions in if she were called on to provide samples of his work to make up for a missed exam, as had happened in his History of Magic OWL. On the other hand, Harry was a very reticent young man when it came to his own feelings, one of the side effects, she felt, of growing up with the Dursleys, although he would never admit as much. Perhaps it might be wiser to seek out the counsel of one of Harry's friends first, sound out the problem a bit before confronting him with it. If it was harmless then she could let the whole thing run its course. Yes, she decided that would be best, to consult with Mr Weasley and Miss Granger before rushing into anything. She placed the essay to one side and reflected for a moment on her young charge. He had not had much of a childhood, and it was almost comforting to see that at least he was getting to experience _some_ of the normal things that teenage males went through. Then she called a house-elf and asked it to ensure that a message was delivered to Mr Weasley and Miss Granger the moment they returned to the castle, asking them to meet with her at their earliest convenience that evening before returning to the rest of her marking.

* * *

In Hogsmeade, Harry was becoming more certain by the minute that if there was such a thing as Fate, then it must hate him. A lot. Lunch in the Three Broomsticks was normally an excellent treat, one of the highlights of any Hogsmeade trip. At the moment, however, the food tasted like ashes in his mouth, and the bright atmosphere and happy chatter that was usually so uplifting was nothing more than an annoying background drone. The reason for this severe dampener, was sitting a few tables away, in the form of Ginny and Malfoy, also having lunch. Together. Harry was resisting the very strong urge to strangle someone, Malfoy being the preferred target, but he could not stop himself from glancing at the happy couple every once in a while. Fred and George noted Harry's thunderous expression, and Fred decided that something needed to be done, and quickly, before Harry's ridiculous idea that Ginny was falling for Malfoy became any more cemented in his clueless brain. The plan was simple, quick and dirty, not exactly their finest work, Fred thought, but this was most definitely a rushed job under severe constraints. Fortunately for him, Ginny was unknowingly cooperating splendidly with their version of events. Her arm had passed over Malfoy's goblet of butterbeer twice in the last couple of minutes. Now all he needed was for Malfoy to drink, and it would be time to come out with a little self-invented Transfiguration spell. 

No sooner had he thought it than it was done. Malfoy raised his goblet to his lips and took a long drink. Fred counted to five slowly, pulling his wand out under the table as he did so and aiming at Malfoy. Fortunately the spell was a silent one, so Harry need never know the truth. He would draw the obvious conclusion, that something in the drink had affected Malfoy, and Fred and George would crow over it with him, and clue Ginny and Malfoy in later.

The change was so gradual that it would be completely missed until it was over, unless you knew it was coming and were watching. Fred knew exactly what to look for, and so noted with glee the subtle alteration of Malfoy's hair. George, knowing his twin as well as he knew himself, knew full well that something was up. He had been on the verge of taking action himself when he noted the subtle movement of Fred's hand under the table. He recognised the wrist twists, and could not help but chuckle internally at Fred's quick thinking and subtlety, not that he himself would have done anything less. He too grinned at the beginning of the change to Malfoy's hair, wondering how long it would take Harry to twig, since he was watching the pair so intensely.

It was only a couple of minutes later that Harry became cognizant of the change that was currently overtaking Malfoy's hair. He could not suppress a snort as he watched it turn, strand by strand, precisely the same shade of red as Ginny's hair. Harry had to say, it did not suit Malfoy nearly as well. Turning to the twins, he could see identical smirks gracing both faces.

"How long?" was all Harry could get out because he was laughing so hard.

"Oh," Fred chortled, "I think that Mister Malfoy will probably be blond again by the time he gets to his common room."

"Depends on how fast he runs," George finished, also chuckling.

Sure enough, it was only a few minutes more before others started to notice the lovely auburn shade of Malfoy's hair, a cause for great mirth for a great many. At first Malfoy was at a loss for why people were watching him and laughing. Then he caught sight of his own reflection in the frosted glass of the pub windows, and let out a rather high-pitched yell for an eighteen-year-old boy. Jumping up from his seat, he tore out of the pub at top speed and back up the hill to the castle, desperate to conceal his personal humiliation.

Ginny watched her companion for the day sprint away as though Voldemort himself were after him with narrowed eyes, noting his suddenly red hair. Then she turned back to Fred and George, who were watching Malfoy run. She could see Harry between them, struggling to restrain his mirth. While she could not be angry with Harry, since he had no idea what was really going on, and he and Malfoy were still rivals, her death-glare directed at Fred and George would have caused Voldemort himself to quail, and promised both of her errant brothers oceans of pain for wrecking the so-carefully laid plan to win her Harry thanks to their inability to restrain their pranking tendencies for one day.

Fred and George paled at the sight of Ginny's glare, although not at all for the reasons she was thinking. They knew that it had been necessary to bring a premature end to this plan, before Harry got the wrong idea. After all, Harry, being his idiotically noble self, would never ever have made a move if he thought Ginny was happy with someone else. Ginny would see that once they explained. The problem was that Ginny's thunderous expression threatened to undo their work on the spot if Harry caught sight of her, since he would naturally assume that Ginny was angry at what had happened to Malfoy because she was not expecting it, which would then lead him to conclude that she was blissfully unaware of the impending prank and therefore actually in love with Malfoy. Fortunately for them, she turned and stormed out after Malfoy before Harry could recover his composure enough to look up. The twins sighed and resigned themselves to some very fast talking in order to prevent themselves from being Bat-Bogeyed, and to having to come up with another plan to make their surrogate brother see the light concerning their entirely real sister.

* * *

Several hours later, the gang was meeting together, this time in one of Hogwarts' many secret passages that was actually quite spacious. Malfoy was mercifully blond once more, but Ginny was no calmer, and Hermione and Ron, having seen the entire episode, were none too happy either. Fred and George were definitely glad that Percy was currently in possession of _all_ the wands, meaning they had a chance to explain before they were killed or similar. 

"Alright," Percy said, calling the meeting to order, "We all know that today's plan failed thanks to some…_intervention_ from Fred and George, but they have assured me that they had good reasons for what they did, so I think we should listen to what they have to say. Before anyone" here Percy looked slightly nervously at Ginny and Malfoy, who were both absolutely livid, "rushes into anything. So, Fred? George?"

The twins practically fell over one another to explain everything, Harry's reaction to Ginny and Malfoy, their conclusions, the very quick and dirty excuse they had come up with and the resultant prank. By the end Ron, Hermione and Ginny were all looking mollified and nodding along with their rushed statements. Malfoy too saw their point, but since he was the one who ended up terminally embarrassed, he was not about to let it go. He would remember, and he would also remember that revenge was a dish best served cold. The Weasley twins would have to watch themselves if they wanted to escape unharmed.

"Fine," Ron sighed, when the explanation was over, "I guess there were good reasons for what was done, but that doesn't change the fact that we need a new plan. Hermione and I have to go and see McGonagall tonight, so we don't have time to have a full-blown planning session, but we'll meet again next weekend in Hogsmeade after five to think out our next plan, okay?"

There was general agreement and the group broke up, collecting their wands from Percy as they went, each considering what they could try next to convince the Boy-Who-Lived to bow to the inevitable…

* * *

Funny? Awful? Say what you really think, please! 

Next chapter: Ron and Hermione face the Headmistress and explain all. Will it be a case of Minerva 'Matchmaker' McGonagall?


	3. Matchmaker McGonagall

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1

Author Note: Happy Valentine's Day to all those that celebrate it. In honour of this day dedicated to romance, here is another chapter. I have to admit that my original intent was to have McGonagall stay out of this whole thing, to approve but remain on the sidelines. However this idea from LovesReading2 caught my imagination, and my sense of humour, and so this chapter underwent a complete rewrite. I may have to change the title to Weasley's Eleven as a result, but I enjoyed writing this, I hope you enjoy reading it. On a separate note, I'm a bit worried that I may have pushed the boundary of the rating a bit, but I don't really want to raise the rating to M, since some of you guys who are already reading may be cut out if I do. If someone can advise me on this I'd be grateful. In the meantime there is now a warning for sexual content in this chapter posted in the first chapter. Please read and tell me if you think the warning is warranted, or if I should simply raise the rating, or if I'm being too paranoid. Okay enough of my babble, on with the show...

* * *

Ron and Hermione knocked on the door of the Headmistress' office about ten minutes later, and were met with a brisk 'Enter!' from within. This was the first time either of them had had the chance to see the Head's office since the start of McGonagall's tenure, and it had changed considerably from the way in which Dumbledore had maintained it. Instead of the haphazard collection of odd-looking devices and dusty tomes spread across tables of various heights and sizes, the room was neat and orderly. Books were now occupying several large bookcases that covered the back wall of the office, while the devices had been removed to a single low table on one side of the room. The perch that had once belonged to Fawkes the Phoenix was gone, understandably since the Phoenix had not been seen since Dumbledore's death, and nothing had yet replaced it. The portraits of former heads remained, although some had been moved to accommodate the new bookshelves, as did the cabinet that housed what had once been Dumbledore's Pensieve. The parchments on the expansive desk was organised into piles that were as neat as they could be considering that some were a good foot in height. 

"Ah, Mr Weasley, Miss Granger, please come in, have a seat" the charismatic Headmistress beckoned them inside, indicating two of three chairs that sat before her desk, arranged so that one was facing the other two, while she seated herself in the third.

"I've called you here to discuss a somewhat delicate matter that involves Mr Potter," she said in the grandmotherly tone that was normally only heard by homesick first-years, or students that were having personal difficulties of one sort or another, "Have either of you noticed anything odd about him lately?"

Ron and Hermione looked at one another somewhat apprehensively, wondering if one of their schemes had gotten Harry into trouble of some sort.

"Nothing particular, Professor. Was there something specific you were thinking of?" Hermione asked, a little tremulously.

McGonagall reached into the mounds of paper that sat on her desk and pulled out a sheet of parchment. She handed it to them.

"I'd like you to tell me what you think of this."

At first the two friends looked somewhat confused at being handed Harry's Transfiguration essay, although Hermione's eyebrows did arch upwards briefly when she realised that this particular essay was not due until Wednesday, and she herself had not yet finished hers. Then they started reading, and their expressions turned from confusion to amusement. Once they had finished, McGonagall waited patiently for their comments. This was not an issue to be rushed, particularly not when the welfare of one, if not two, of her own Gryffindors was at stake.

"I think Harry has a bit of a crush, Professor," Hermione said, trying to be clinical about the issue, while at the same time restraining the urge to giggle madly at the success that this essay represented in their efforts to get Harry to take real notice of Ginny.

"I believe you are right, Miss Granger," the Headmistress said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth briefly before her expression became serious once again, "The question is how seriously I must take this issue. It has come to my attention that Mr Potter spends an inordinate amount of time concerned with Miss Weasley, following her to and from classes, meals and other places as well. Certainly his welfare is an issue, and perhaps even hers. There are many cases in which infatuations of this kind, if allowed to go unchecked, can grow into dangerous obsessions. You are both his best friends, and I hope you will advise me on how strong these newfound feelings of Mr Potter's are, and therefore how best to proceed. I could, for example, arrange to forbid Mr Potter from coming into contact with Miss Weasley except in the classroom, or have a talk with him about his infatuation."

Hermione and Ron's expressions had gone from amused to horror-struck as their Headmistress continued to enumerate options for dealing with Harry's crush that would completely and quite thoroughly ruin their careful work. McGonagall, a sharp and observant woman, was quick to notice their consternation and call them on it.

"What is the matter? Is there something else, something I am not aware of but _should be_?"

The emphasis on the last two words was unmistakeable and caused the two Gryffindors to wince. Busted. And no way out either. They knew better than to even think about lying to their head of house, who could smell a month old lie from a mile off and call you on it faster than you could say 'prevarication'.

"Well…er…well…that is…"

"What Ron is trying to say, Professor, is that there is something else."

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, shocked that Hermione would be willing to reveal everything just like that.

"Oh, Ron! We can't keep it a secret anymore. Maybe it was stupid to think we could in the first place. Besides," she continued somewhat conspiratorially, "Imagine what we could do with Professor McGonagall's help!"

Ron considered that for a moment, and could not help grinning as the horizons of possibilities expanded beyond his wildest dreams. With the help and support of the Headmistress of the school their options were virtually limitless…

Some little while later, Minerva McGonagall was deeply shocked by the sheer _deviousness_ of two of her favourite students. At first she had been outraged by the callousness with which they were playing with Harry's feelings, and had been on the verge of assigning them detention for the rest of their time at school, until they had explained just how far Harry's feelings for the youngest Weasley child extended and how ridiculously shallow his reasons for acting the way he was acting were. Few knew it, but at heart the clever Transfiguration Mistress was something of a romantic, and this entire situation was just like something out of one of her favoured novels from the Muggle world. She had sent the pair on their way with the promise that she would consider everything they had said and then let them know what she decided. In return they promised to obey her if she ordered them to cease their scheming in the interests of school discipline. As time progressed, however, a new idea formulated itself in the clever Headmistress' brain, one that might well wreck her reputation for sternness and fair-mindedness if her true intentions ever got out. Nevertheless, she had promised herself, one Halloween night long ago, that when the last scion of the Potter line finally returned to the magical world, she would do everything in her power to ensure his safety and happiness. She was a woman of her word. What better way to fulfil it than this?

* * *

"Detention, Mister Potter! This is my classroom not your dorm!" 

The stern voice of the Transfiguration Mistress rang out in the midst of the classroom, jerking Harry back to consciousness. He did not know what had possessed him to drop off in the middle of Transfiguration, but that appeared to be exactly what he had done. Silently he cursed the incredible load of homework he had had to do this week, which had resulted in three all-nighters in the last five nights. If he did not know better, he would have sworn that someone was deliberately weighing him down with work. All of his classes had set heavy assignments at the same time, and he was feeling the strain. Now he had detention to look forward to instead of an evening off. Could this week get any worse? Probably not, since it was Friday.

"Yes, Professor," he said somewhat wearily, "Sorry, Professor."

_Three bags full, Professor,_ he wisely refrained from rounding off aloud as she turned back to the chalkboard to resume the lesson that Harry had now lost the thread of. He looked down at the chapter of the textbook that lay open in front of him to see that they were doing Self-Transfiguration. He groaned inwardly, Self-Transfiguration was one of the key ingredients in becoming an Animagus, an ambition he still held mainly because he wanted to be like his father and godfather in some regard and this seemed like the best way to honour the memory of their happiest achievements as Marauders. He skim read the chapter while listening to McGonagall with half and ear, in order to pick up the thread of what she was talking about. Once he was vaguely up to speed, he began taking notes that were fairly coherent and would make sense to him later, as opposed to the drivel he would otherwise have managed to take down. When the class was done, McGonagall held him back to arrange his detention.

"Tonight at eight o' clock, Mister Potter, come to my office. I have discovered a hidden storage space in the office whose contents have not been inventoried. You will sort and catalogue them all without magic. I have already had it scanned for harmful substances and Dark curses, so there will be no need for protective clothing. If you should happen across your family Grimoire in the process, feel free to take possession of it."

"Yes, Professor," he supposed it could be worse, he could be down in the dungeons scrubbing cauldrons, and he might get something out of this detention. He knew what a Family Grimoire was, Neville had showed him his, and Harry had wondered since the start of the year where the Potter Grimoire could be. He had checked with Gringotts, but they had said that Dumbledore had taken it into his possession on the night his parents died. McGonagall had searched for him, but had been unable to find it, despite her best efforts. He had resigned himself to starting a new Grimoire and the Headmistress had put him in touch with several experts in the area who had offered their services in creating and enchanting such a volume to the latest and most powerful standards. Perhaps he would be able to forego the decision over which one to pick if he could find his own. Still though, why detention? And especially why now? He had been looking forward to a nice quiet, relaxing Friday night, and instead he would be sorting through sure-to-be endless piles of who-knew-what. He headed off to Ward-Casting, contemplating this rather dismal ending to what had proved a stressful week.

* * *

Promptly at eight that evening, Harry arrived at the gargoyle that still guarded the entrance to the Head's office and waited for McGonagall to come down and let him in. He was surprised to find that he was not the only person awaiting acknowledgement by the Headmistress. His breath caught in his throat, as it usually did, when he was confronted with Ginny, looking as lovely as she always did. Maybe detention wouldn't be so bad after all if he got to do it with her. 

"Hi, Harry," she said brightly.

"Hi, Ginny," he responded, "You got detention as well?"

"Yeah," she sighed, "From Sprout for not looking where I was putting my Venomous Tentacula cuttings. Poor Emille had a very near miss, so I can't really complain too much about it."

"Oh," well at least her reason was more valid than falling asleep in class, stupid homework, "Well, sorry to hear that."

_Sorry?! Moron! Is that the best you can come up with?!_

Ruthlessly silencing the indignant voice in the back of his brain, Harry carried on.

"At least it's a good reason to have detention though, not like me, pathetically sleeping through McGonagall's class like that."

Ginny's musical laugh drowned out the voice, which was screaming _IDIOT! _at him at the top of its metaphorical lungs.

"Very true," she said. She probably would have continued, but at that moment the gargoyle ground to one side to reveal the Headmistress standing there, as stern as ever.

"Come in," she told them both briskly, "I have some business to attend to briefly, so I shall be leaving you to get on with it for a while, until I can come back and check on your progress. You will leave your wands with me in order to ensure that you do not cheat and use magic. _Any_ misbehaviour in my absence will result in detentions until the end of term, do I make myself clear?"

The pair of them nodded and surrendered their wands, attempting to look suitably penitent as they did so, one succeeding because he was, while the other could not resist giving the Headmistress a half smile that received only the most fleeting upturn of lips as a response. Harry did not realise exactly what was on the cards tonight, but as Fred and George had said many time before: half of the entertainment was in the surprise value. McGonagall led them up the stairs and into her office proper, showing them the space she had recently discovered. Quite ominously, it was accessed by a trapdoor in the floor of the office and a short flight of stairs. Peering in, Harry could see a rather cramped space, whose walls were lined by shelves that held tottering piles of books and other assorted junk. Similar piles littered the floor as well. The Headmistress instructed them as to how she would like the space arranged, with books on the shelves on one side of the room and artefacts on the other side, then she swept out, with one final dire warning about not getting into mischief.

Harry and Ginny descended into the cramped space to begin their work, and from there things began to go downhill, quite literally. They had just reached the point on the staircase where their heads were below the level of the floor of the office, when the staircase flattened out into a ramp, pitching both of the forwards into the cramped space. Whatever had triggered the change in the stairs also caused the trapdoor to swing shut, plunging them into darkness. Harry landed with a loud 'Oof!' on a pile of junk, some of which was rather hard although fortunately none of it was sharp, and then gave out another small groan when Ginny, who had been following him down, landed on top of him.

"Owwww," Harry groaned, "That was not good."

"Are you okay, Harry?" Ginny asked from her position on top of him, taking advantage of their position to squirm slightly against him as though getting up when in reality she had no such intention.

"Yeah," he grunted, trying to hide the fact that he was rather enjoying the fact that Ginny was lying right on top of him, "Just surprised, is all. What about you?"

"Well you cushioned my fall, so I'm fine."

"Okay," Harry said, trying valiantly to ignore the very interesting way that Ginny was squirming against him, and keep his voice rock steady and at its normal octave, "Well it's pretty dark in here, can you see anything?"

"No," was the reply, but Harry only registered it peripherally because he was suddenly very aware of a rapidly developing problem south of his belt-buckle that was the result of Ginny's close proximity to and interesting motions against him. He needed to get her off him before she noticed it herself.

"Okay," he said again, trying to keep his cool and his mind off his traitorous body, "Well I think we should try to get up and find a way out of here."

"But Harry," Ginny said in a concerned tone, "We could lose each other in the dark."

Had Harry's brain been operating at full and rational capacity, he probably would have seen through this rather flimsy excuse, but close proximity to Ginny was not good for the rational side of his brain to begin with, and he really needed her to get off, before his condition became evident.

"I guess," he replied, "Perhaps if we held onto each other's hand?"

Ginny grinned into the darkness. This was even better than she had hoped.

"Okay," she said, and quite deliberately placed her hand flat against his breastbone, "Tell me whether I'm getting close to a hand."

Harry, however, had great difficulty restraining a moan, let alone be able to form a coherent sentence, as Ginny drew her hand torturously slowly across his chest towards his left shoulder. This was not helping his blood-flow problem _at all_. At last, however, her wandering hand found his wrist and closed around it, and not a moment too soon in his opinion. He swiftly grasped her own wrist with his left hand, and then moved to roll her off of him. He waited a few moments after she was all the way off, and then moved to stand, never relaxing his grip on the wrist that was his only reference point for Ginny's location. He swayed slightly as Ginny also scrambled up, then steadied himself and looked around. The room was pitch-black, not even a sliver of light penetrated from anywhere to aid them, and with no wands they had no chance of illuminating anything themselves. Bugger.

An insistent tugging on his wrist told him that Ginny wanted to move further into the room, or at least he assumed it was further in, he had lost all sense of direction between the tumble and the…aftermath. He followed obediently, until the pull stopped quite suddenly.

"I thought I saw some wands over in this direction as we were coming down the stairs," the disembodied voice of Ginny informed him from the darkness, "If we could find one we would at least be able to see."

Harry nodded his agreement, before realising rather sheepishly that Ginny would not be able to see him do so.

"Sure," he said, aloud, hoping that the short pause had not been too pregnant.

"You nodded, didn't you?" she asked, her voice definitely amused.

"Yeah," he admitted sheepishly, but once again the embarrassment was nothing compared to the joy of hearing the music of her laughter.

"Never mind," she said, "Let's just feel around and hope we find something."

Obediently, Harry bent lower and let his free hand wander across the surfaces of whatever it was littered the floor and shelves nearby, searching for any long, thin object that might be a wand. The grip on his wrist did not change, which meant that he was rather surprised when a hand not his own started to wander through his hair. This was torture, pure torture. How many times had he _dreamed_ of Ginny sitting in his lap, running her hands through his hair? Now she was doing it for real, well not entirely for real, she was not sitting in his lap, but Merlin her hand running through his hair felt good! _Get a grip! _He told himself sternly. This was not the time and place for such fantasies. He took a few deep breaths before speaking up.

"Gin, that's my hair," he said as steadily as he could, in fact he was rather proud of how normal he sounded.

"Oh," she said, faking surprise, for she had in fact been fully aware of that fact the entire time, while she disentangled her hand from his hair, "Sorry."

A few moments later, Harry's hand closed on something that felt vaguely wand-like. Hoping against hope, he took hold of what he guessed to be the handle.

"_Lumos!_" the whispered incantation caused his hand to suddenly appear to glow from within as he discovered that he was indeed holding a wand, but by its tip rather than its handle. Oh well, at least they had a light now, even if it was a trifle dimmer than the one his own wand normally produced for him. He guessed that this wand was not a great match for him. The sudden light had caused Ginny to turn to look at him, and she looked rather happy to be able to see again.

The light revealed the details of the small, cramped, space they were in. They had moved to the left of the staircase, which now appeared to have returned itself to its original configuration once more. Harry also noted with some relief that there were a pair of torch stanchions, one on each side-wall of the room. He switched around his grip on the wand and lit both with short bursts of fire from the borrowed wand before allowing the Light spell on the wand to die.

"What do we do now?" Ginny wondered aloud.

"Well," Harry said, "Sometimes the simplest options are the best. Why not just climb the stairs and try to push the trapdoor open?"

"Okay," Ginny said, but she looked doubtful. He did not blame her, he was doubtful, but it was worth a try. They climbed the stairs, and were relieved when it did not become a slide under their feet again. The trapdoor, however, proved quite immovable by either of them – although to be fair Ginny was hardly putting any effort in at all, she was not in any hurry to get out after all – and the stairs were not wide enough for them to push on it together. They tried futilely for a couple of minutes before giving up and retreating back down the stairs. Harry then suggested trying to spell the door open. He tried several simple spells first such as Levitation charms, Opening charms and even the Banishing charm in an attempt to get the door to move, while Ginny watched in slight amusement, as he got more and more frustrated at the resolutely closed door. Finally Harry reached the end of his tether.

"Gin take cover."

"Why?" she asked somewhat fearfully, knowing that the door was probably heavily warded against strong spells.

"I'm going to blast that door into pieces," Harry replied quite calmly.

"Harry, no! You have no idea what could happen if you try that. The door is obviously warded."

Harry ignored her and raised his wand. Seeing that he would not be dissuaded, she scurried to a fairly large mound of junk and crouched down behind it, peeking out and praying that no harm would come to him.

"_Reducto!_"

The blue jet that erupted from Harry's borrowed wand was not nearly as brilliant as it usually was, nor did it travel as quickly, which was probably a good thing because it rebounded off the door and headed straight back for the point where Harry was standing. Ginny could not repress a fearful squeak as Harry was forced to dive out of the way of the returning curse and it gouged a small crater in the floor of the room. As Harry was getting up she rose and ran over to him.

"No more of that," she exclaimed snatching the wand from him, "You'll get us killed! Let's just sit and wait, McGonagall will be back and she'll let us out."

Harry, unable to think of anything else that might move the door, agreed. He did not want to try any more curses on the door, just in case. A couple of flicks of the borrowed wand by Ginny cleared the floor and had the books, trinkets and a few more spare wands neatly organised on the shelves. McGonagall would probably let them off for using magic considering that they had been stuck here, if she ever found out that was. Bereft of something to do now, they simply sat next to one another quietly in the open expanse of floor. Harry tried valiantly not to stare, he really did, but somehow piles of old books, oddly shaped trinkets and the bare stonework of the walls just did not seem to hold his eye the way that Ginny did. She was so beautiful, and the dim flickering torchlight suited her right down to the ground. Red-gold highlights danced through her hair in a show of shades and hues that easily rivalled any firework to ever come out of Fred and George's joke-shop, and the shadows that played across her face merely served to emphasise every perfect detail of her profile.

_Look but don't touch, Potter_, his rational mind reminded him, but Merlin it was difficult. He just wanted to run his own fingers through her titian tresses. He wanted to caress that perfect cheek with his knuckles. He wanted to have those perfect lips pressed against his own. He wanted to whisper sweet nothings…uh oh, she was looking his way now and he was pretty sure his eyes were glazed. With great effort he shifted his eyes to look at the comparatively very boring pile of books that stood to his right, the opposite side of him from Ginny. He wanted to tug on his suddenly rather tight collar, but knew that to do so would give away the direction in which his traitorous thought-processes had wandered.

Ginny was in secret transports of delight as she caught Harry staring at her. Although they were somewhat dampened by the fact that he looked away almost immediately. Internally she marvelled at his self-restraint, virtually any other boy would have had been ravishing her quite thoroughly after this much teasing, but Harry was _still_ remaining a steadfast gentleman, even if she could practically _see_ his fantasies playing through his head. In some ways it was very endearing, but in others it was most annoying. What did she have to do, get a sign that said 'Kiss me' and hang it around her neck? Hmmm that might not be such a bad idea perhaps…Deciding to up the ante, she shifted closer and let herself lean against Harry's side, her head resting on his shoulder.

_Oh God_, Harry tried appealing to a higher power since Merlin did not seem inclined towards helping him out today. Ginny's weight had shifted and her entire upper body was now pressing against his, while her head was resting on his shoulder. _Just tired, Potter, she's just tired,_ he rationalised to himself. It was a statement that was borne out by a glance at his watch, whose semi-luminous dial informed him that it was now nearly ten o'clock. Where had the time gone? _You spent most of it with your mind in the gutter, _his conscience informed him, _when you get back to the dorm we are going to have a very long talk. _Harry gulped, although whether it was because of his subconscious' threat towards him or because Ginny chose that moment to shift slightly against him, he was not sure. _Just keep it together until the Headmistress gets back,_ he told himself. Where the bloody hell was McGonagall anyway? She had said she would only be gone a briefly, it had been two hours! Had she checked the office and assumed that they had completed their task already and gone? He devoutly hoped this was not so. An entire night of this and he might not be able to help himself. No! He had to stay strong, for Ginny's sake, she deserved so much better than the likes of him, and he would see to it that she got it.

Ten minutes of pure hell later, during which Harry could have sworn that the second hand of his watch was moving at half-speed, he was supremely glad to see a crack of light in the ceiling. He watched with immense relief as the trap door that led out of this cubbyhole was lifted, and he could have kissed Professor McGonagall as she descended the stairs, trying to locate her young charges. McGonagall saw the look of relief on Harry's face and knew instantly that their plan had not worked. He would have been annoyed at her interruption if anything had happened between himself and Miss Weasley. On one level she was proud that he had conducted himself with honour and upheld the code of conduct that the school advocated, but she was also unhappy that her scheme had failed. Oh well, there was nothing to be done for it now, but perhaps in the future she might be able to assign a few more double detentions, although not too many, otherwise it might seem suspicious.

"Mr Potter," she began sternly but quietly, like Harry assuming that Ginny was asleep, "Care to explain why I return to my office to find the door above us shut and sealed with yourself and Miss Weasley still in it? And would you care to explain why it is that I detect spell residue in here when neither of you should have been using magic in your task?"

Harry proceeded to give what McGonagall assumed was a heavily edited version of the evening's events, although his voice was rather hoarse and it took him two tries to speak normally. She suppressed a smile at this; perhaps Miss Weasley had had more of an effect on him than she had first thought. He left out any hint of untoward conduct on Miss Weasley's part, although she suspected that the red-haired beauty had teased the boy unmercifully. Then his tale finally wound down with the excuse that Miss Weasley had claimed to be tired and he had suggested she lean on him for comfort (a notion that made her have to work much harder to conceal her smile, since she seriously doubted that this was anything close to the truth) until she returned to let them both out.

"Very well, Mr Potter," she said, "I suppose I cannot blame you for your use of magic under the circumstances. I shall not require you to serve any more detentions for this, however do not fall asleep in my class again, or you will find yourself in detention for the rest of the year, do you understand?"

Harry nodded.

"You may go, and please take Miss Weasley with you."

"But Professor, I can't take her to her dorm, I won't be able to get up the stairs."

"Of course," McGonagall replied, having honestly forgotten this fact, "I shall take her then. Come."

McGonagall levitated Ginny with a silent spell, much to her chagrin. She had been hoping that Harry would carry her to bed. Deciding to 'wake up', if she could not take advantage of her 'sleeping' state, she blinked her eyes open and feigned a yawn and a stretch before looking up.

"Professor?"

"Ah, excellent Miss Weasley. Mr Potter has already described for me what has transpired here this evening. You are free to go back to your dorm now."

"Yes Professor," she said, somewhat glum now that her chance was well and truly over. McGonagall let her down and together she and Harry departed from the Headmistress' Office and made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. In the Common Room they parted ways, with a friendly good night, although Ginny could not resist one last hug, which Harry did not begrudge her since he was totally unaware of the pre-planned nature of her other actions that evening. Then he disappeared up the stairs to the boys' dormitories, while Ginny watched him go.

"Just you wait, Harry," she said when he was out of sight, "I'll get you, sooner or later."

Then she went up to her own bed, looking forward to dreams that would no doubt consist heavily of replays of her wicked teasing of the love of her life…

* * *

Funny? Awful? Too smutty? Review and tell me what you think! 

Next Chapter: The Gang's cunning plan is foiled by a loyal follower of Harry's and he has to deal with Ginny on love potion. Will our intrepid hero be able to cope with the girl of his dreams throwing herself at him? Will he give in? Will he remain steadfast?


	4. Loyal House Elves and Love Potions

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1

Author Note: I know the idea of Harry having to fend off girls on Love Potions is a sad old plot point that has been done to death, but really I couldn't write a story like this and _not _include it. I have to admit that much of the inspiration for this chapter comes from another fic entitled Pheromone, My Lovely by an author named Cherazor (story id: 2744774). This is an excellent story that comes with my hearty recommendation. Sadly it's not been updated in almost 16 months, not even with an I'm alive! note by the author, so I think it may be abandoned, although if you happen to read this Cherazor, I hope you find the inspiration or the time, or whatever it is that you're lacking to finish it. I really want to see how it ends! It's a H/Hr, just to warn you all, but it's one of those rare H/Hr stories that includes Ginny _and _does _not _portray her as a psycho, or a cold calculating bitch or an obsessive fan-girl which is a merit in itself in my humble opinion. I'm considering writing a H/Hr where Ginny is a perfectly normal girl with no problems whatsoever who just has to accept that she has to get over her crush who does not feel the same way about her, just to prove that such a plotline is in fact doable. Okay rant over, my prejudices on this matter are starting to become a little too obvious, but seriously, check the story out even though it may be abandoned, what's there is a great piece of work. Now we turn to Hogwarts, where things are about to get a little crazy for Harry…

* * *

The rest of the Autumn Term passed quickly for both Harry and The Gang. Unfortunately for all concerned, The Gang had had little success, even with McGonagall studiously ignoring anything suspicious that occurred in relation to Harry. An ill-thought out plan that had involved Luna shadowing Ginny and Harry with a sprig of mistletoe to pull out at the opportune moment had backfired spectacularly when The-Boy-Who-Lived-In-Total-Obliviousness had given _Luna_ a friendly peck on the lips rather than do anything with Ginny. Needless to say, this had put an end to anything further to do with mistletoe, and no one had had any better ideas before they were all called home by their various families for Christmas and New Year. Now, however, they had returned to the school for the rest of the holidays, except for Harry himself, who had not left, and new preparations had been made while they were away, preparations that The Gang felt certain would work. They had the weekend before the start of classes, and they were going to make good use of it. Soundless as a wraith, Ron Weasley stole across his dorm to Harry's bed. He actually felt a little foolish doing this, but someone had to, and he shared a room with Harry so he was the logical choice. Oh-so-carefully he reached down and took firm hold of several strands of Harry's hair. A quick tug and a swift leap later, he escaped with a handful of Harry's jet-black hair and was back across the room, looking totally innocent. Harry, however, was for once sleeping the sleep of the dead, and so did not notice a thing. Ron was suitably pleased, and descended to the Common Room humming the Mission Impossible theme tune to himself. Hermione had showed him the movie over the holidays when it had come over on the tevelision, and he had rather enjoyed it, even if that Tom Cruise bloke was bloody crazy for trusting his life to flimsy bits of rope rather than a good levitation charm.

In the Common Room Ron met Ginny, who was carrying a small phial of clear potion carefully. The potion was one of Fred and George's newest additions to their Wonderwitch products line. It was not a love potion per se, but rather a potion to relax the inhibitions of the drinker in expressing their feelings towards the targeted individual. The idea was that, instead of the rather unethical practice of inspiring obsession, the potion merely encouraged the drinker to express themselves honestly and without restraint. The added bonus was that the potion was graduated, so the more one drank, the freer they would get with their actions. They figured that they could start by dosing Harry with one drop, then two, then three, and so on until his inhibitions were relaxed enough for him to admit his true feelings for Ginny and ask her out, at which point they would withdraw the potion and allow nature to take its course.

"Did you get it?" she asked excitedly, she could not wait for this one to play out, the plan was foolproof.

"Yeah," Ron said showing the several strands of raven-black hair for inspection.

"Great!" Ginny said, taking the hair and placing it in the potion, then proceeding to remove several strands of her own hair and putting those in too. The additional ingredients caused the potion to change from its innocuous clear and colourless state to a rather suspicious looking pale pink, but unfortunately the colour could not be helped, it was something about the ingredients in potions related to emotional control that caused the colour to be thus. Ginny stoppered the phial and then slipped it into her pocket.

* * *

Harry came down for a rather late breakfast in fairly good spirits. He nodded cordially at all those he met in the corridors on the way to the Great Hall, and he was happy to see his friends had saved him a space at the Gryffindor table. He slid easily into their midst, loaded his plate with bacon, eggs, sausages and toast and filled a goblet with pumpkin juice and joined the conversation that was currently occurring, which currently consisted of Hermione giving her rather long-winded opinion on some esoteric topic that was way over his head while Ron attempted to relate it to Quidditch metaphors. He did not take note of Ginny taking the phial of pink liquid out of her robes and carefully spilling a single drop into his goblet.

Someone else did, however. Kreacher, the house elf that belonged to Harry noted the contamination of his master's drink with outrage. Master Harry Potter was the one who had helped him to fulfil his master's last command, and had banished the Dark Lord and given House Elves everywhere a much better life. Kreacher considered it poor repayment to his master to allow him to be poisoned in some way by the Blood Traitor trollop. Simply vanishing the goblet, however, was out of the question, it would alert the Blood Traitor trollop to the fact that her treachery had been discovered. Kreacher needed a more cunning plan. Using his Elf magic he summoned the contents of the phial from her pocket to himself, suspending it as a liquid orb in the air above his hands and examined it. It was some type of love potion that Kreacher had never seen before. Clearly the Blood Traitor trollop was trying to scheme her way into his master's bed and steal his master's house from under him by bearing his children and controlling him with love potions. Such attempts could not be allowed to go unpunished. Not for nothing had Kreacher served generations of a Slytherin family, he was quite crafty himself, and he determined that it would be best to give the Blood Traitor trollop a taste of her own medicine. Perhaps then she would think twice before using love potions on his master. How though? How could he do it and also save his master from what was already in his goblet? Kreacher was contemplating the matter, when he was forced to take sudden action as Master Harry Potter picked up his goblet to take a drink. Desperate, the elf vanished the contents of the goblet. It was better to alert the Blood Traitor trollop than to have his master suffer the indignity of being her thrall.

Harry endeavoured to take a drink from his goblet of pumpkin juice, and was surprised to discover that it was empty. Weird, hadn't he filled it up just a couple of minutes ago? Shrugging it off as one of his friends mixing up goblets, he simply refilled it and took a long drink before returning to the conversation. Once again he failed to note Ginny, who was now scrutinising him carefully, waiting for the potion he had, to her eyes, downed in one gulp to take effect.

Kreacher watched the group rise and depart from the table, and knew that he had missed his opportunity to get revenge on the Blood Traitor trollop for the moment. He would do it at lunch though, or earlier perhaps since he had heard the group talking about having a snowball fight on the grounds, after which they would surely want hot drinks to warm up. He conjured up a phial of his own in which to put the potion until then. He would slip the potion into her drink when Master Harry Potter was not present so that he would not accidentally trigger as the love potion's target, and then watch her run amok chasing after another boy. Secretly, Kreacher hoped that she would fixate on the Corner boy, but that was just his meaner streak talking.

Harry and his friends went outside, joined by the fairly large group of students who had elected to remain over the holidays or to come back to the school early in order to get themselves organised for the coming term. They divided off into two teams, one consisting of The Golden Trio, Ginny, Luna, Dennis Creevey and Rose Zeller, while the other contained Demelza Robins and Jack Sloper, Draco, Emily Fawcett, Henrietta Galding, Dean Thomas and Hannah Abbot, and proceeded to have an all-out war with the snow that lay thick on the grounds. Snowballs flew in every direction, not always at members of the opposing team, and after an hour or so everyone was thoroughly soaked by melted snow, but that hardly seemed important to anyone. As Kreacher predicted, the whole group went down to the kitchens and asked the House Elves for hot drinks, which they were only too happy to provide. Kreacher was careful not to let anyone see as he poured the phial of potion wholesale into a mug of hot chocolate and gave it to the Blood Traitor trollop. Step one of his plan was complete, now he needed to get his master away so that the Blood Traitor trollop would fixate on someone else.

"Master Harry Potter sir?"

"Yes Kreacher?" Harry made an extra effort to be civil to Kreacher these days, he had after all been very helpful to Harry once they reached an understanding, "What is it?"

"Kreacher wonders if he could have a moment of master's precious time to ask a favour of him?"

"Sure," Harry said, wondering what this could be about. Kreacher never asked for favours, he asked for orders. Hermione gave him an appreciative smile as he rose and followed the Elf down a passage and into a private space that Harry assumed was a storage room.

"What's up Kreacher?" Harry asked when the Elf did not speak up immediately, "You can ask me anything you like, you know. I won't get angry with you for just asking."

"Kreacher…Kreacher wondered if Master Harry Potter sir might consider allowing Kreacher to return to the Most Noble House of Black in order to prepare better for Master's arrival at the end of the year. House needs much doing to be fit for master to live in, and lazy Kreacher might not have enough time to do everything if he must stay all the time at Hogwarts."

To say Harry was surprised by the Elf's hesitant request would have been an understatement.

"I'm sorry, Kreacher, I must have forgotten to tell you, I don't plan on moving into Grimmauld Place after school. Too much to remind me of Sirius, you see. I was planning on renting somewhere in Diagon Alley, or in Hogsmeade depending on where I get a job."

Kreacher's ears drooped a bit. The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black had been his home since he could remember. Seeing the Elf's somewhat downcast face, and thinking of his pledge to be nice to him, Harry continued.

"If you want to, you could stay at Grimmauld Place," he said quickly "You don't have to move just because I want to. Grimmauld Place is your home, you don't have to leave it if you don't want to."

Kreacher looked ready to burst into tears at the thought.

"Master Harry Potter is too kind! But it would not be proper for Kreacher to remain where Master is not. Kreacher should always be on hand for when Master needs him. Kreacher will go with Master Harry Potter to his new house."

"You don't have to, Kreacher," Harry argued, "If you're happy at Grimmauld Place then you should stay there."

Had Hermione been present, he would have earned major brownie points with her for saying that. Sadly she was not.

"Kreacher will be happy wherever Master is happy," Kreacher responded firmly.

"Fine," Harry said, mentally throwing up his hands at the stubborn Elf, "But if you should change your mind, I won't mind at all."

"Kreacher lives to serve Master, Kreacher will not change his mind."

The discussion over, Harry and Kreacher returned to the others, Kreacher being reasonably certain that by now the Blood Traitor trollop would have developed her fixation, and it would not be on his master.

* * *

Several hours later, Ginny was sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, reading a book about the Practical Applications of Runic Magic in Healing. It was mainly about using spells powered by runes to monitor patients, but it was dead interesting since she wanted to be a Healer after school. She looked up as movement flickered at the corner of her field of vision, and saw Harry walk down from the Boys Dormitories, seat himself in an arm-chair nearby and flip open a book of his own to read. It was a light-bulb moment for Ginny as the fact suddenly hit her. She loved Harry Potter. Of course this was not a new revelation, she had loved Harry for ages, but for some reason it was really hitting her in the face right now. She wanted to shout it from the top of the Astronomy Tower, she wanted to write it in huge fiery letters across the sky. She wanted to tell Harry, repeatedly, and then to show him unequivocally with passionate kisses and…her mind did not so much enter the gutter as dive headfirst down the manhole and into the sewer at that point. She had been content to wait for the schemes of the others to play out, before, but no longer. She loved Harry, she knew he was besotted with her, it was time to start doing something about it.

Closing her book with a sharp snap, she rose from her chair and sauntered across the room to perch herself on the arm of the chair he had sat in. She leaned over, so that her chest was level with his eyes.

"Hello Harry," she purred in his ear.

Harry Potter's head whipped around in shock at the low greeting in his ear, and was suddenly confronted with a very close-up view of a woman's chest, albeit one still covered up by a pristine white blouse. To say that it was a bit of a shock was an understatement of the highest order, much like suggesting that Everest was a small hill, or the Pacific was a bit of a puddle. He reared back in surprise, nearly tipping the chair over as he did so. His face went bright red when he saw who it was.

"Ginny," he gasped weakly, "Don't _do_ that."

"Sorry, my love," she apologised contritely. She had not meant to upset him, after all, just to get his attention.

It took a moment for Harry to process her reply, mainly because his ears had just informed him that she had referred to him as 'her love'. He must have imagined it. _Damnit now is not the time to be having fantasies, Potter! At least try to have a civilised conversation without leaping into the gutter. _Harry looked up at his best friend. She seemed a little…flushed, he noted with concern, not that he was an expert in the skin-tone of Ginny Weasley, mind you, she had just gone a little pink in the cheeks. Her pupils were rather dilated too, he could hardly see her brown irises at all. Finally, her expression was a little odd, too, if he did not know better he might have labelled it as adoring.

"Gin, are you feeling okay?" he inquired with some measure of concern.

"Never better," she assured him with a dreamy smile, he was always looking out for her, "I was just noticing how – handsome – you look today."

What. The. _Hell_? Had Ginny just called him handsome? Harry stood so that his face was not inches away from Ginny's more distracting attributes while he attempted to work out what was going on. Had he fallen asleep in the Common Room? Was he dreaming?

"Very handsome," she repeated huskily as she stood in front of him, and trailed a fingertip down his right cheek, smiling to herself as she watched his eyes darken to a shade of emerald. He wanted her, she could tell.

Harry grabbed Ginny's wrist and pulled her teasing fingertip away from his cheek. If this was a dream, then it was one hell of a dream. Pinches were just not going to cut it, so he slapped himself around the face, hard. Ow. Not a dream then. Okay if this was not simply his sordid imagination, then what was going on? Was she playing some kind of joke on him? His thought processes were suddenly and cleanly interrupted by the press of a pair of full, soft lips to his cheek, the one he had just struck.

"G-Gin? W-what are you doing?" he gasped, on the edge of incoherence because of the sensations that were spreading from his cheek to his brain, making him feel a trifle light-headed.

"Kissing it better, my love," she told him, her voice rather muffled because she had not removed her mouth from his cheek in order to speak. Harry's head was spinning. Had she _really_ just called him 'her love' again? He released her wrist and grasped her shoulders, forcing her to back off slightly.

"Look, Gin," he began awkwardly, releasing her and attempting to back away and put a more decorous distance between them, but suddenly found the hard stone wall of the Common Room at his back. When had they moved that far? When had they moved at all for that matter? "If this is some kind of joke, then it's making me a bit uncomfortable…"

"I can change that," she purred teasingly, "I can make you comfortable, _very_ comfortable."

Suddenly Harry's mind put it together, the flush, the dilated pupils, the forward behaviour: Love Potion. He moaned internally, he was in so much trouble. And the two people who could be relied on for discrete help, Professor Slughorn and Madam Pomfrey were not even in the castle at the moment. Both were out who-knew-where, doing Merlin-knew-what. McGonagall was the only member of staff still present, and there was _no way_ he was taking Ginny up to see her about this. Knowing his luck, the stern and moralistic Headmistress would come down from her office to find Ginny holding him up against the wall and attempting to kiss him senseless. No, there was nothing for it but to deal with this on his own. He would not give in to temptation though, he vowed that instantly. For one thing it would be incredibly wrong of him to take advantage of any girl in this state, and for Ginny it was ten times worse, because he loved her. For another, if he did succumb, Ginny would hate him forever once she came out from under the potion, and he certainly did not want _that_, not at all.

His mind snapped back to the present situation when he felt the renewed press of Ginny's lips against his cheek. He let out an involuntary gasp as she started to move upwards, trailing kisses across his jaw-line and towards his ear. His brain was starting to short-circuit under the weight of all the pleasure signals it was receiving. He needed to get out of here, fast.

"Listen, Gin," he invented wildly, as he pried her off him once again, "As great as this is, you don't look too well. You're all flushed and rather warm. Maybe you should go and lie down for a while?"

Not waiting for an answer, he bolted out of the portrait hole.

* * *

Harry entered the library some time later, looking distinctly dishevelled to the concerned eye of Hermione Granger. Nevertheless, she was happy to see him there for once without her having to drag him in. Harry did not have nearly the phobia of the library that Ron did, but he still ought to spend more time studying in Hermione's opinion, particularly since this was their NEWT year.

"Hi Harry," she greeted him.

Harry was immensely relieved to see Hermione; if anyone would understand and help him it was she.

"'Mione, am I glad to see you," he gasped, "I really, really need your help."

"With what?" Hermione asked curiously.

"With Ginny," Harry replied desperately, "She's gone mental. I think someone's dosed her with Love Potion. Up in the Common Room she was throwing herself at me!"

Hermione was open-mouthed in shock. Ginny was supposed to give Harry the potion, not take it herself! And if she was throwing herself at Harry then she must have taken a lot of it, most of the phial they had, at least. Harry, however, misinterpreted her expression.

"I know," he said, "It sounds crazy, but I'm telling the truth. I haven't done anything, I swear. But you've got to help me find an antidote."

"We can't." Hermione blurted, then caught herself, "Harry we can't give Ginny an antidote to Love Potion without knowing which potion she was given. There are over a dozen different kinds! Administering the wrong one could result in serious brain damage."

Harry looked at Hermione in horror before collapsing into the chair next to her and slumping onto the table, his head resting on his arms.

"I'm so dead," he moaned pitifully, his voice somewhat muffled by the fact that he was talking into the table, "Ron is going to _kill_ me if he sees Ginny the way she's acting right now, and I don't know if I can take this, you know? I mean Ginny's a friend, I don't want to do anything to upset her, but I _can't_ give in to her either."

Hermione rubbed his back sympathetically, but there was little she could say to comfort him. She resolved to write to Fred and George as soon as possible. They needed the antidote to the potion, and quickly too, before something untoward happened.

"I'll talk to Ron," she assured the distraught Boy-Who-Lived, "He'll understand that it's not your fault. The only other thing you can do is just avoid Ginny as much as possible until it wears off, and fend her off if you can't avoid her."

"Easy for you to say," Harry moaned, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

"I know," she commiserated with him, knowing that this was difficult, doubly so because of the way Harry felt about Ginny, and wanting him to feel that he had at least some support, "But there really isn't anything else we can do without knowing what she was given except to let the potion run its course."

"Err, don't look now, Harry, but Ginny just walked in, and it looks like she's looking for something, or _someone_, if you take my meaning."

Harry moaned and ducked under the table, but too late, because Ginny saw him and hurried over.

"Harry, my love," she squealed happily, ducking under the table herself, "I've been looking all over for you."

Harry backed away hastily as she reached for him, and rose to his feet, Ginny following suit.

"W-Well I've been here, studying with Hermione, as you can see," he stammered out, gesturing towards the pile of books that stood on top of the table.

Ginny appeared to take no notice of his answer, however, as she wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed gently.

"No matter," she told him, "I've found you now."

Harry threw a plaintive glance at Hermione over the top of Ginny's head, praying that she would do something, anything, to help him out before the wonderful feeling of Ginny pressed up against himself made him do something he would regret later. Fortunately his brown-haired best friend came through for him, just like she always did, mouthing the word 'dinner' at him and nodding towards the clock.

"Shall we go down to dinner then?" he asked, trying to inject a light and airy tone to the rather desperate plea.

"Sounds good," Ginny purred, "I'm dying for a bit of a bite."

From the look in her eyes, Harry had the sudden impression that it was not food she was talking about at all. He backed away, but she followed, and his back was to the wall once more. Ginny moved in closer and her hands started to wander across his chest as she nuzzled against the side of his neck. Harry looked towards Hermione again, mouthing the word 'help', but this time she merely gave him a helpless look and a shrug. Not even the smartest witch in her generation could have a solution for everything.

"Gin, dinner?" his voice was at least two octaves higher than it should be, but at this point he was impressed that he could form even small coherent sentences, such was the effect of Ginny's attentions to the base of his throat.

"Are you sure you don't want to just skip dinner?" Ginny asked, her voice going back to teasing as she withdrew slightly to look him in the eye, "We could have a lot of fun up here, just you and me…"

"Yeah," he said then backtracked as he realised the way her question was phrased, "I mean no! I mean we should go down. I hear they have chocolate fudge cake for dessert, your favourite."

It was quite a good ploy, he felt; Ginny _loved_ chocolate fudge cake. If she could have, she would undoubtedly survive solely on the stuff. As it was, whenever there was a rumour that it might be available, which was not often, she always, _always_ made sure she saved room for a big piece.

"Alright," Ginny agreed, backing off, and Harry nearly sagged in relief, until she made her next statement, "I've always heard that it tastes better off someone else's lips, maybe we can test that, hmmm?"

She arched an eyebrow and gave him a naughty smile, causing him to gulp loudly. Suddenly he was devoutly hoping that there was not anything remotely chocolaty available for dessert, otherwise he might have to make a run for it.

* * *

Dinner proved mercifully devoid of chocolate. Instead the House Elves had provided a truly magnificent treacle tart, which had made Harry very happy indeed. Better yet, McGonagall had come down to dinner. Even in her drugged up state, Ginny realised that doing anything remotely indecorous to Harry in the presence of the stern Transfiguration Mistress qualified as a Bad Idea, so he had prolonged his time at the table as much as possible, and then escaped her altogether by begging the excuse that he wanted to talk to McGonagall about something. She did not accompany him, but instead retreated to the Gryffindor Tower to plan her next avenue of attack on Harry's gentlemanly conduct. Of course his happiness came at a price, that price being that he was now sat in the Headmistress' office, trying desperately to think of excuses to prolong their meeting. So far they had discussed his NEWTs, his career options for when he left the school, the possibility of an Apprenticeship to Professor Jones with an eye to gaining his own Mastery in Defence Against the Dark Arts in preparation to take over the post himself on Jones' retirement and even the upcoming presentation dinner at the Ministry at which Harry was to be formally awarded his Order of Merlin (First Class) for destroying Voldemort. Now, however, Harry had run out of things to talk about, and the clock in the office told him that it was only eight o'clock. He hoped that by the time he returned to the dorm, after a few detours along the way, it would be late enough that he could legitimately go straight up to bed and thus avoid Ginny wholesale. Knowing his luck, however, the chances of that happening were slender indeed. He did not want McGonagall to become suspicious, so he thanked her for her time and walked down the stairs towards the Gargoyle that guarded the office with the air of a man walking to the electric chair.

Meanwhile, up in the Common Room, Hermione and Ron sat together, trying desperately to work out some kind of solution to their suddenly rather major problems. Hermione had filled Ron in on the situation and they had owled Fred and George for an antidote. Unfortunately, the twins had written back stating that Ginny must have taken far too much, if she was acting so forward, for their antidote to have any chance of working. Thus their options were rather limited. Neither of the pair could see anything to do except let the potion run its course and let Harry deal with it. If either of them, or anyone else for that matter, attempted to intervene then Ginny would probably fly off the handle, such was the nature of love potions, from which Fred and George's potion was derived. It was somewhat distressing and very disheartening that not only was their supposedly foolproof plan not working, but in the process of failing, it was also causing Harry a good deal of trouble. Ginny would be for the high jump when she returned to normal if she did not have a good explanation of how she wound up taking the potion instead of giving it to Harry.

"Maybe it really just isn't meant to be," Ron posited glumly, "I mean we've tried just about everything thinkable, and a few things that weren't, and they're still not together."

"I don't believe that," Hermione argued, "They love each other so much, but Harry just can't see it. He doesn't see how great they would be together, all he sees is how wonderful _she_ is, and you know his self-esteem has never been great. He's probably labouring under the delusion that he's not good enough for her."

"Maybe," Ron said, "But how do we get him off his noble horse?"

"I think we may have to forget about anything else and go with our last plan," Hermione said, thoughtfully, "At this point I really don't think anything is going to get Harry to make the first move. I know Ginny wanted Harry to ask her, and I know you want it to be perfect for your sister, and I love you for that, but I really don't think Ginny is going to get her fairy-tale proposal at this point. Everything we do just cements Harry further and further into his position."

"Alright, well we better let the others know, but I think we'd better at least wait until this business with the potions has died down, otherwise Harry is _really_ not going to be happy with any of us when we tell him everything."

"I agree," Hermione seconded, having no desire to incur the wrath of her best friend. She had seen the Boy-Who-Lived in a snit, and it was not a sight she wished to behold directed at her.

The decision made, they turned to snuggling in that way that only teen couples can pull off without looking like complete idiots. By the time Harry arrived up in the Common Room, they were snogging enthusiastically, Hermione sat in Ron's lap with her hands cupping his face, while his hands were tangled in her long, bushy hair. Harry was so used to finding them like this by now, that he simply grinned at the sight upon entry, and then walked past.

"Get a room," he told them casually, and as usual they ignored him. He actually doubted whether they even registered his presence when he found them like this, but formalities had to be observed, and if McGonagall ever walked in on them like this then at least he could say he had tried, albeit not very hard, to get them to stop.

He continued up the stairs to his dorm, unheeding of the fact that Ginny had not been in evidence, a realisation that might have caused him to be suspicious. Sadly, the one time when he really should have done, he did not note her absence. Thus it was that he simply clambered into bed and lay down to sleep.

* * *

Several hours later, Harry was awoken from his slumbers by the most curious sensation he had ever experienced upon waking up. Something warm and pleasantly heavy was resting on his chest, and a similar warm weight was pressed up against the whole of one side of himself. He opened his eyes and squinted into the blur that was the best his unaided eyes could produce for him. The moonlight from the window next to his bed illuminated a pile of something auburn resting on his chest. Slightly more awake now, he was registering more than just the warmth of whatever it was. It felt very…silky, like the excellent quality sheets that he had once slept in at Grimmauld Place. Reaching out tentatively to touch the auburn silky mass, he was rewarded with a solid contact. Suddenly he realised exactly what was going on, and immediately had to fight off the very strong urge to run screaming. Ginny was in his bed, screaming and waking Ron up would qualify as a Very Bad Idea, particularly since, he realised, Ginny was actually under the covers with him. If Ron woke up to find them like this, he would not have time for a single syllable of explanation before Ron hexed him into oblivion or beat him bloody. He reached over to the nightstand on his left, fortunately the opposite side from Ginny since his right arm was currently trapped between her body and his own, and grabbed his glasses. Having put them on, very slowly and carefully, almost afraid of what he might find, Harry lifted up the covers and took the briefest of peeks in, and instantly breathed a huge sigh of relief. At least Ginny had retained enough sense or self-control _not_ to enter his bed naked. The fact remained, however, that she was in his bed and if anyone should find them like this then there would be very serious trouble, so he needed to do something. He nudged Ginny gently, causing her to stir slightly.

"Ginny," he whispered, accompanied by another gentle nudge, "Wake up, Ginny."

Her head tilted until she was looking at him, her eyes bright in the silvery moonlight. Naturally born sources of light, Harry decided irrelevantly, suited Ginny very well. Much like the time he had wound up stuck with her in detention, the moonlight illuminating her at the moment gave an ethereal quality to her beauty that stole his breath away. Why did she have to look so wonderful all the time? It made it so much harder to stay true to his promise to stay away.

"Ginny what are you doing here?"

"Sleeping, love," she told him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which he supposed it was.

"Gin, you've got your own dorm. Why don't you go back to it?"

"You're here," she said, again as if it was the most obvious thing. Why did she have to keep saying things like that? Her eyes were dark pools of infinity that he could quite happily gaze into forever. He wanted to break, to give in and return every ounce of the affection she was currently showing for him. He gave himself a mental shake, reminding himself firmly that it was the potion talking, that this was only a temporary situation, that Ginny would soon snap out of this, and that if he did anything to her, then she would in all likelihood castrate him herself.

"This isn't real, Gin," he tried to explain to her gently, hoping that it would penetrate her potion-shrouded mind, "What you're feeling isn't real. I don't want…"

"It's more real than anything else I feel, now or ever before," she countered before leaning up to capture his lips with hers. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but all that came out was a moan as Ginny slid her tongue in between his parted lips and proceeded to French-kiss him into complete incoherence. The feeling that coursed through him was wonderful, liberating and so intensely blissful that he thought his head might explode. He could quite happily have stayed that way forever except that reality, in the form of his conscience screaming bloody murder at him, intruded. With almighty effort, he broke the kiss, but Ginny was not perturbed by this. She simply buried her head back into the niche below his collarbone and sighed contentedly.

"You're my one and only, Harry," she declared huskily.

Merlin how he wished that that declaration had been real, but again he knew it was just the potion talking. He would not respond, he_ could not_. He gathered the last shreds of his resistance.

"Listen, Gin, you really need to go back to your own dorm now. If Hermione finds you gone and Ron finds you here we are both going to be in so much trouble tomorrow."

He did not emphasise that it would probably be _he _who would be in the most trouble. He did not want to take advantage of Ginny's potion-induced adoration for him in that way.

"Are you sure it wouldn't be – worth it?" she purred, and from her tone Harry was certain beyond any doubt that she _would_ make it more than worth his while if he allowed her to stay. This was, of course, precisely the _reason_ why he absolutely could _not_ let her stay.

"I don't want you to get in trouble," Harry assured her.

"What if I said I wouldn't care?" Ginny asked, letting her hand wander across his breastbone.

"I would care though, Gin," he tried, it was worth a shot. At this point anything that would get her out of his bed without reducing her to tears was worth a shot. He did not think he would be able to take it right now if she cried, he might give in just to cheer her up.

"Oh, Harry, that's so sweet," she told him, her hand moving upwards to caress his cheek, "I love it that you care, but I want to be with you, and I'll do a whole year's worth of detentions for it if I have to."

Harry sighed deeply. Why was nothing ever easy? Clearly she was not going to move of her own free will, and he did not want to force her, that was sure to make her get upset. There seemed no option but to physically move her himself while she was asleep.

"Fine then," he said, shrugging and faking a smile, "Stay if you want."

"Really?" she looked so happy. This was killing him, really killing him.

He nodded, not sure that he could keep up this façade if he spoke any further. She buried her head contentedly back into his chest and sighed happily.

"I love you, Harry," she repeated, and he just patted her head gently as a response.

A scant few minutes later Ginny was fast asleep once more and Harry went into action. He discovered to his dismay that his covers were quite thoroughly tangled up around Ginny's arms and legs, too much so for him to get them off her without risking waking her. Being slightly chilly for the rest of the night might not be such a bad idea, however, since he _really_ needed a cold shower at the moment, so he simply picked Ginny up, bedcovers and all and staggered down the stairs with his rather bulky burden. He could not deposit her back in her own dormitory, the stairs would not allow him entry, so instead he placed her very gently on one of the couches in the Common Room and proceeded to tuck the covers in around her to try to ensure her comfort as best he could. Then he returned to his dorm, pulled out the spare blanket from under his bed and spread it over his now bare under-sheet before laying down to sleep once more. Before he closed his eyes, he looked up at the ceiling and prayed very devoutly to anyone that might be listening that by morning Ginny would be back to normal again. If she wasn't, he wondered whether anyone would miss him all that much if he jumped out of the Common Room window.

* * *

Ginny awoke the next morning feeling very warm and fuzzy inside. She had spent the night with Harry, and it had been wonderful beyond her wildest dreams. She had kissed him and it had been so completely heavenly that she could not really find a word to adequately express it. She rolled over lazily, expecting to be confronted with Harry's sleeping form. She was therefore understandably confused to be confronted with what looked, from her vantage point, to be the back of a chair. That was not right, she thought, her brow furrowing. Checking, she assured herself that she was wrapped up in Harry's bedcovers, the patterns matched and they were laced with his heady scent, yet she was quite clearly not in bed with Harry. Suddenly it hit her; Harry must have brought her down some time after she fell asleep. She sighed happily, he was so sweet, looking out for her to make sure she did not get into trouble, and giving up his own bedcovers to boot. He really was the perfect gentleman. She was going to have to do something _really_ special for him, to show her gratitude. A few possibilities skittered across her mind, but none of them seemed to fit just at the minute, she would have to think further on it and decide later. She got up, folded the bedcovers neatly and piled them on the sofa she had been lying on before disappearing up the stairs to her dorm to get dressed for the new day.

Harry, meanwhile, was debating the merits of remaining in his dorm the entire day, just in case Ginny was still acting the way she had been yesterday. It was, he felt, not a bad idea. He could talk Kreacher into bringing him his meals, and he would probably not be missed since there were no classes yet. Then he remembered that Ginny had already managed to get in here once, despite the protections cast on the stairs and the doors of the dorms. She would certainly come looking for him, and being in a room with only one exit when she did was probably not a good idea. He therefore got up, showered and dressed. As he descended the stairs he pleaded with Merlin to let Ginny be sane again. When he entered the Common Room, however, it was immediately clear that Merlin was ignoring him today, as there was a happy squeal of 'Harry!' from the Girls' Dormitory stairs, and he turned to see Ginny running towards him. His breath caught in his throat and he wondered how it was that Ginny managed to pull it off. He was intellectually aware that there were plenty of other good-looking girls out there. Hermione, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, heck even Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass of Slytherin were very beautiful young women. But somehow, and he could not, for the life of him, work out how, Ginny was the only girl he knew who could actually make the Hogwarts school uniform look sexy. Perhaps it was the fact that the Gryffindor coloured edging of the outer robe was a perfect complement for her fiery red mane of hair. Perhaps it was the way that beneath the outer robe, her clothes were an exact enough fit to show off her wonderful figure. Perhaps it was the fact that at the moment she had the top two buttons of her blouse undone, showing just the barest hint of…

_OI! You have NO right whatsoever to be looking there, sunshine! Get your eyes back on her face now or it's curtains for you, Potter!_

Right, eyes on face. He could do that. Face good, chest goo-bad! Face good, chest bad! He groaned internally, he needed help, fast. Unfortunately, thanks to his debate over whether to stay in bed all day, even Ron had managed to get out of bed before him, and he suspected everyone else had gone down to breakfast as well by now, meaning that it was just the two of them up here at the moment. That was about as far as he got before Ginny literally flung herself at him, forcing him to catch her and physically hold her up or risk them both tumbling to the floor. By the time he regained his balance and set her down on her feet again, she was already nuzzling against the side of his neck again.

"Morning, Ginny," he said as calmly as he could given the circumstances.

"Good morning, love," she returned, her voice slightly muffled since she did not cease her attentions when she spoke. Harry gasped as she kissed a particularly sensitive spot just below the line of his jawbone. Enough was enough, he decided. He needed to get out of here, now, and he had an excellent excuse.

"Well, I was just going down to breakfast, so I'll see you later…"

"I'll come with you," she said to his chagrin, "I haven't had breakfast either yet. I was waiting for you."

"O-Okay," he said, even though it was most definitely _not _okay, he could not think of anything to put her off. The whole walk down to the Great Hall he attempted to occupy his mind with thoughts that did not relate in any way, shape or form to the fact that Ginny chose to press her body close enough to his own that he was convinced her objective was to fuse them at the hip, or to the great view he could so easily get by leaning his head a little to the side. Needless to say, by the time they reached the Great Hall, Harry was wondering if it would look overly strange if he poured a jug of ice water over his own head.

Breakfast was, fortunately for Harry's sanity, a fairly civilised affair. Clearly Ginny was beginning to regain some of her faculties, as she was not acting nearly so wantonly now they were out in public. Of course this was not exactly saying much, she was still snuggled up much too closely to Harry for his comfort, and she was currently conducting some kind of arcane experiment on his breakfast plate that involved several slices of toast, a small mountain of scrambled eggs and liberal amounts of butter. Since there was little he could do about it, he let her get on with whatever she was doing and occupied himself by silently watching the other people at the table. Most of them were busy eating, although they did spare the occasional glance for the newfound closeness between Harry and Ginny. Harry did not know it, but many of them, even the ones not directly involved in Ron's plot, were silently thanking whatever divine influence had _finally_ gotten those two together. Instead he grew more and more embarrassed, thinking that they were disgusted with the way he was allowing Ginny to humiliate herself. Ron and Hermione, however, kept shooting him sidelong glances and faint smiles, which he responded to with dark glares. How could they find this amusing? They might not know how difficult it really was, since he had hidden his true feelings from them, but he had expected at least a modicum of sympathy from them for his plight. No such luck, apparently.

His attention was suddenly and forcibly returned to Ginny and his breakfast by the fact that she was now poking a forkful of the buttered scrambled eggs, sandwiched between two slices of toast, against his closed lips. At first he refused to open his mouth.

"Come on, Harry, you need to eat something. Just one mouthful? For me?"

Harry noticed that the rest of the table was now staring at him openly. He groaned in frustration, why was it always him? At least he could console himself with the fact that he was only being humiliated in front of a small number of students rather than the entire school, as would be occurring during term time. Opening his mouth, he quickly ate the proffered food, in the hopes that Ginny would be satisfied and allow him to feed himself now. No such luck, unfortunately, as she kept hold of his fork, although this did not prevent her from reaching up with her free hand and playing idly with his hair. When he swallowed, he found Ginny ready with another forkful. Clearly this was not going to end until he either took control of the situation, escaped, or finished every last scrap of Ginny's scrambled egg sandwich. Since his rumbling stomach would not let him leave until it was satisfied, and since he really did not want to wrestle Ginny for control of his own fork at the table, thereby drawing even more scrutiny to them than they were already receiving, he chewed and swallowed at a rate that made Ron's usual shovelling technique seem positively snail-like in comparison. When his plate was finally clear, Ginny pulled him closer to her, setting the fork down and stroking the side of his face. Perhaps his earlier assessment of her actions as less wanton had been a little premature. Fortunately no one was looking in their direction anymore, except Ron and Hermione with their ever-present smiles that Harry would dearly have loved to wipe off their faces.

"Did you enjoy your breakfast, love?"

"Yeah, I guess," really what else could he say? He did not want to upset her at the breakfast table. He regretted it, however, as Ginny sighed contentedly and laid her head on his shoulder. He was forcibly reminded of the torturous time he had spent in detention for McGonagall last term when he had wound up in a similar position with Ginny. That time the whole thing had been totally inadvertent, as Ginny had nodded off against him; this time she was doing it deliberately, and it was making his him even hotter under the collar now than it had then. He needed to get out of there, fast.

"Listen, Gin," he invented wildly, "Breakfast was great, but I've just remembered that I need to go to the library and finish off the references for my Charms assignment."

"I'll come with you," she offered at once.

"No!" he panicked, before pulling himself together as far as Ginny's continued proximity would allow, "No, Gin, I don't want any distractions, so that I can get it done as quickly as I can."

Ginny only seemed to hear the first half of that sentence.

"Do I distract you then, Harry?" she asked sultrily.

"Yeah," for once his mouth and his conscience were in total agreement, "A lot."

She gave him a smile that he did not like, not one bit. It was a smile that foretold mischief, and in her present state, he was sure that mischief would involve something to seriously endanger both their virtues.

"I'll let you get on with it then," she told him, causing him to sag internally with relief. Then she rose, and with a kiss to the cheek that was rather lingering, she walked out of the Great Hall. Harry watched her go, rationally relieved, but still irrationally desolate that she had just walked out on him.

* * *

Several hours later, Harry was climbing the stairs to his dorm, intent on putting his book-bag away and going down to the kitchens for a late lunch. His plan to avoid Ginny was thus far succeeding in spades. Hiding out in the library under his Invisibility Cloak was probably the best idea he had come up with in the whole of this disaster. Ginny had not once been in to check on him, but even if she had she would not have been able to find him. He entered his dorm, and only once he had firmly closed the door behind him did he slip off the Invisibility Cloak.

"Hello, Harry," Harry stopped dead and cursed inwardly; he should have thought to check the dorm for Ginny before cutting off his only avenue of escape. Slowly, hesitantly and very much afraid of what he would find, he turned his eyes to his bed in the furthest corner of the room. The sight that confronted him caused his eyes to widen to the size of the average saucer, and he gulped loudly.

"H-hi, Gin," was all he could say as he was treated to a vision that was something straight out of one of his fantasies. Ginny lay on her side on his bed, her head propped up by one hand while the other was flicking idly through the pages of some book or other that she had been reading. This might not have been so bad, since Harry was well used to Ginny's preferred reading posture. It was what she was wearing, or rather what she was evidently _not_ wearing, that caused him to tug at his suddenly very tight shirt collar. As far as he could tell, the only parts of her school robes still gracing her person were her black tights and the snow-white blouse that was _still _two buttons undone at the top. The rest of it was scattered carelessly across his area of the dorm. For some reason, although he knew he really should avert his gaze, he could not seem to tear his eyes away from Ginny as she rose and sashayed over to him, her blouse riding up slightly with every step to reveal tantalising hints of black lace that made Harry blush to his roots. She stopped right in front of him and draped both of her arms over his shoulders and around his neck.

"I've been waiting for you," she whispered huskily.

"Merlin, Gin I…" she did not let him get any further, silencing him with a teasing fingertip to his lips.

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" she asked softly. Then, before he could even think to formulate a response, she leaned in and replaced her finger with her lips, kissing him soundly. He gripped her shoulders and gently forced her backwards.

"Look, Gin, we just can't do this, okay? You're not yourself at the moment," he was now past caring about the troubles it would cause if he rejected her outright. He just wanted to her to leave before his resistance crumbled and he gave in. He knew it would happen soon if this did not stop. Hopefully she would understand once she got back to normal that he had not really meant to hurt her feelings.

"I don't want to hurt you," he continued, "But I just don't feel…"

He trailed off because it was rapidly becoming evident that Ginny was not listening to a word he was saying. Her flush had suddenly become rosier, and her eyes had taken on a glaze that Harry did not like at all. Was she having a bad reaction to the potion? Surely any allergy would have been triggered by now. Was it the kiss? Had he done something to her without realising it? She swayed rather alarmingly, which was all the warning Harry got before her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped forwards in a dead faint. He caught her gently before she could hit the floor, and held her up, still cognisant of the fact that she was rather scantily clad and trying to keep his hands away from any danger areas. It was immediately clear, however that she was completely unconscious, so he picked her up and laid her back on his bed once again while he contemplated the best course of action. He obviously could not take her to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey was still not back, and even if she had been, there was no way he was carrying Ginny through the halls in her current state of undress. In the absence of any well-informed course of action, he decided it would probably be best to let her wake up on her own. In the meantime, he collected together the various discarded articles of clothing that she had scattered around his bed, including, to his supreme embarrassment, a white bra with black lace trim that was hung over his footboard, which he picked up as though it might well burn or bite him if he were not careful and dropped very quickly on top of the pile of Ginny's clothes.

After that there was little he could do except wait for Ginny to wake and pray that no one walked in, in the meantime. He certainly wasn't going to try and put any of her clothes back on her. He sat in the chair that stood by his bed and took to watching her while he waited for her to wake up. Despite all the grief she had put him through in the last day and a half, Harry could not help noticing how beautiful Ginny looked while she was not throwing herself at him. Not that she had looked ugly while she _was_, that would have made everything _so_ much easier. But she really did look very cute, laid out on the bed as she was. Her hair was fanned out on his pillow like a fiery halo. Her face was calm and peaceful in sleep, and her chest rose and fell rhythmically with her breathing. Feeling somewhat daring, he reached out and ran a hand through her titian tresses, the gentle motion of his hand calmed his frazzled nerves as much as anything, and after a bit he felt much calmer than he had since this whole mess started the previous afternoon. .

"You're so beautiful, Gin," he told the inert girl, "Much too beautiful really. And I love you, maybe too much. If I loved you less then I might do something about it. But you deserve the best, much better than me, so I guess I love you enough to let you go. It'll hurt," he assured her, "when you find him, whoever the lucky bastard is that wins your heart, but I'll always be here for you, as a friend. I hope you know that, because I just don't have the courage to tell you so to your face, I wish I did. Some Gryffindor I am, huh?"

He finished with a self-deprecating laugh, although his monologue inexplicably made him feel much better, in spite of the fact that he was affirming out loud his promise to give up the one thing he had wanted more than anything else for the better part of eighteen months now. He continued to stroke her hair, but no other words particularly leapt out as needing to be said at this moment, so he kept silence. He quickly lost track of how long exactly he sat there like that, but it was long a fair while, in his estimation, before Ginny started stirring. Her flush had receded to leave her complexion back at its usual hue, and Harry guessed that she was finally over the potion, or perhaps it was more that he _hoped_, by everything that anyone had _ever_ held sacred, that she was over it. Just in case, however, he went over to the dorm door and opened it, pocketing his Invisibility Cloak as he did so, so that he could make a swift exit and hide if necessary. He then took his seat beside the bed again as Ginny began to stir in earnest. Her eyes blinked open, and were unfocussed for a few moments before she zeroed in on his presence.

"Harry?" she asked, sounding for all the world as if she had just woken up from a good night's sleep.

"Hey, Gin," he said, "How do you feel?"

To his immense relief and overwhelming happiness, her voice was neither fatuous, nor adoring, nor laced with innuendo as it had been over the last day and a half.

"Weird," she said, then paused before continuing, "and cold too. Can you shut the window?"

Slightly bemused by the abrupt return of the normal Ginny, he got up and closed the door, which had been the source of the draft.

"You'll be warmer if you put your clothes back on," he told her, attempting to sound matter of fact about it, as though Ginny being scantily dressed was totally normal.

"My clothes?" she asked her brow furrowing. Then she looked down at herself and saw what he was talking about, "Oh, okay."

She rose and Harry averted his eyes while she dressed.

"Where are we anyway?" she asked the back of his head, "When you asked how I was feeling I thought we were in the Hospital Wing, but this doesn't look anything like it."

"Errr," Bugger! How to answer without getting himself into trouble? He decided that honesty was the best policy and hoped to high heaven that either she recalled her actions or that they could get to Ron and Hermione and an explanation before she hexed him into oblivion, "Actually we're in the dorm Ron and I share."

"Oh?" he could _feel_ her eyes narrowing dangerously at his back, "And _why_, may I ask am I in your dorm, with no one else around, in this state of undress?"

"Err, how much do you remember of the last day or so, Gin?"

"I don't see…"

Her voice, which had been low and decidedly deadly, trailed off quite suddenly, and Harry chanced a look over his shoulder, just in case something bad had happened. Mercifully, Ginny was fully dressed, so he turned to face her. He was amused to note that it was now her turn to be absolutely tomato red in both cheeks. Turnabout was fair play, he guessed, after all the blushing he had been doing since last night on her account, although he was not going to hold a grudge. She had not been in control of her own actions.

"Are you alright, Ginny?"

She made a small choking sound and blushed harder, which Harry was very surprised to see _was_ possible. If she got any redder he might have to take her down to the Hospital Wing for real.

"Gin?"

"Merlin, Harry, I'm so sorry," she told him in a very small voice, "For everything."

He smiled, able to see the humour in the situation now that it was over, and trying to put her at ease.

"Don't worry too much about it, Gin," he told her easily, "You weren't in control. I'm just glad it wore off before you had the chance to do anything too drastic."

His smile was answered by a very tentative upturning of Ginny's lips, although her blush was not receding at all.

"I'm glad too," she told him sincerely, "I want my first time to be special."

She did not mention that it was actually _their _first time that she wanted to be special. Now was not the time to be dropping such obvious hints.

"And it will be," he assured her, "You'll find the right man, and all your brothers and I will do our duty in threatening him with all kinds of horrible fates unless he treats you like a queen."

Ginny did not really have anything to say to that. The only thing she could think of was how Harry was going to be on the receiving end of those threats, not the giving end, but again, now was not the time to voice that kind of thought out loud. Harry mistook her silence for an uncomfortable one, so he filled the gap.

"Listen Gin, I was just about to go down and get a late lunch when I came up here. I know you didn't have much breakfast. You were – uh – busy with my plate. Did you have lunch yet?"

"No," she admitted, "At least not that I can remember."

"Care to come with?" he asked.

"I guess, if you can stand my company," she said with a laugh that should have been breezy, but even the Boy-Who-Was-Clueless picked up the slight tremor of uncertainty in there. He gave her a short bow and stuck out an elbow in mock-courtly fashion. Hoping to put her at ease and get this whole thing behind them as quickly as possible.

"Miss Weasley I would be delighted for your company."

Her laugh at his antics was stronger, and she linked her arm with his, although she was careful to keep a respectable distance between them. Harry certainly was not going to complain about that. Truthfully he was just as glad of the space, but he hoped that they could put this episode behind them soon, or at least get to the point where it was a funny story they could tell rather than a seriously embarrassing topic for both of them. By the time the pair had made it down to the kitchens, they were making small-talk about their respective holidays, even if it was a little forced in its casualness, and they were both careful to stop well before yesterday afternoon. It would take several days before they were totally at ease with one another again, and in the meantime Ginny would have to face the wrath of three brothers and one surrogate sister, but for now she was just happy that this incident had not forever ruined her relationship with Harry…

* * *

Phew! A monster chapter at over ten thousand words, but sooo much fun to write! It would therefore be nice to get a lovely lot of feedback on it, so please review and tell me what you thought!

Next chapter: One Last Show! Will Harry finally give in to Ginny's personal entreaty?


	5. The Personal Touch

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note: Well here it is, the final chapter. The vote was very close as to whether or not to include an interlude, but a couple of PMs tipped the balance in favour of rounding it all off this chapter, although perhaps at a later date I may revisit that interlude and insert it here. No promises though. Now that the end is nigh, I'd like to thank everyone who has read this and left comments, whether in review or Private Message form. In particular I'd like to thank my repeat reviewers: lovesreading2, GwenFrewi72 and Amaherst, your consistent commentary has been a real encouragement. And now if I carry on any further I'll sound like one of those speechifiers at a prize-giving ceremony, so I'll shut up and we can turn to Hogwarts, where Harry is in a bit of a situation (again!)...

* * *

Harry Potter groaned loudly as he regained consciousness. His head was pounding and his muscles felt weak and rubbery, as though he had spent much, much too long exercising. Actually, considering he had spent the whole of Friday evening on the Quidditch Pitch, practicing with the rest of the Gryffindor team, that might not be such an implausible explanation, except for the fact that he could not remember how he got back from the Pitch. Thinking back he tried to recall what he had done after the end of practice. He got as far as the changing rooms, where he had shed his Quidditch robes and donned his plain black school ones again. The team had left the changing rooms together and started to walk back up to the castle. Then his memory was blank until he had woken up here. How could he not remember? What had happened to make him forget how he had gotten back to the castle with the rest of the team? He stared up at the canopy of his bed as he tried to piece it together. It was then that he realised that, unlike normal, the canopy of his bed was in perfect focus, and that he was, in fact, wearing his glasses in bed. It was lucky that he had not rolled over onto his side, or else he might have crushed them. This gave rise to the question, however, of why he had gone to bed without taking off his glasses. Had he been that tired? He was, he noted, still wearing his school robes as well, although they were now rather creased from his having slept in them. Perhaps he had, in fact fallen into bed and his fatigue was why he could no longer recall how he made it up to bed.

He waited until the pounding migraine had receded to a dull ache in his head and his limbs felt a bit steadier before he sat up in bed, taking stock of his surroundings as he did so. The bed itself was identical to the one he slept in, in the Gryffindor dormitories, a four-poster with white sheets, dark grey blankets and a maroon bedspread that was matched by the curtains that were drawn around the bed for privacy. However the way the light beyond the bed shone through the curtains told him that this was most definitely not his own dormitory bed, not unless his dormitory's sole source of light had become flaming torches overnight. Even at night, because his bed was right by the dorm window, he got light from the outside, but here, wherever here was, he just had the flickering flames. The idea that he was in a facsimile of his own bed, that was not in his dorm was disturbing, to say the least, because who would do that to him? And if he was not in his own dorm, then where was he?

Deciding to exercise caution, Harry parted the hangings around his bed just enough that he could see through and get an idea of what was out there. The view, however, was somewhat less than informative. The room beyond his bed was dimly lit, but there was enough light for him to realise that it was bare in all directions as far as he could see. No one was there, and there was no other apparent furniture. Wrenching the hangings apart in one swift motion so as to surprise anyone who might be there but that he had missed, Harry was confronted with…an empty room. The room was somewhat sparsely furnished. Aside from the bed there was a small round table with two chairs and place settings for two on it. There was also a fireplace with a single rather large chair sat in front of it. The room was lit by the fire in the fireplace and by a series of torches set into iron stanchions in the wall. A clock above the fireplace informed him that it was mid-morning.

He clambered out of bed and walked over to the door. It would not budge however, not even the slightest bit, no matter how hard he yanked on it, so after a minute or so, he gave up, electing to try magic on the door instead. It was then that he made another disturbing discovery: he did not have his wand. This discovery was more disturbing than the locked door and the stalker-like copy of his bed put together. If he had his wand then he could solve both of the former problems, unlocking the door and getting out, and thus rendering completely inconsequential the appearance of the furniture in the room. He turned out all his pockets and searched the bed thoroughly, but could find no sign of any wand, let alone his. Now he was very nervous indeed. Had he been kidnapped? And if so, by whom? What did they want with him? He reasoned that whoever 'they' were, they could not be Death Eaters. Death Eaters would have killed him on the spot, or taken it in turns to torture him until he was a horribly mutilated corpse. Since he was still very much alive, and in relatively good health, it could not, therefore, be Death Eaters. That still left him with more questions than answers though. If it was not Death Eaters, then how had he got here? Where was here? Did anyone know he was here? Did they care? The questions were starting to cause his headache to return with a vengeance, so he ceased listing them mentally for now. Instead he decided that, since it could not really hurt, he would try the next most obvious tactic for getting out of here, wherever here was.

"Hello?" he called loudly, beating a fist against the solid wooden door, "Is anyone there?"

His efforts were instantly rewarded by a very familiar redhead walking into the room, directly _through_ the still solidly shut door. Harry fell back a few steps in surprise before regaining his composure and looking directly at the smiling face of Ron Weasley.

"Excellent," Ron said, cheerfully, "You're awake."

"Yeah," Harry replied neutrally, Ron's expression was setting off alarm bells in the back of his head. He was not normally this cheerful before noon on a Saturday, "Mind explaining what's going on?"

Ron's smile faltered for a bit, but came back as strong as ever. The alarm bells in Harry's head were getting louder.

"Weeeeell," Ron drew out the word into at least three syllables, "You see it's like this mate. You are driving me, and everyone else you know absolutely up the wall with this whole 'repressed feelings' act. So what's going on is that we, that is to say everyone, are giving you the opportunity, a golden opportunity, to drop the charade and admit everything."

Harry stared at Ron as though he had just declared that he was madly, passionately, eternally in love with Pansy Parkinson. Had _Ron Weasley_ just given him a lecture about repressed feelings? The boy who had spent six years in a pathetic attempt to conceal the fact that he fancied Hermione Granger before finally asking her out at the start of this year? He let that slide, however, in favour of trying to find out more.

"What are you talking about, and what do you mean by an opportunity?" he asked warily, using his fingers to make air quotes when he said opportunity.

"Harry," Ron said with the air of attempting to explain to a two year old that one plus one makes two, "You fancy my sister. Don't even try to deny it!" he said when Harry opened his mouth to interrupt with a vehement denial, "You fancy my sister, and it's so painfully obvious to everyone, including her. You moon over her all day. Your eyes are glued to her whenever she's in the room, and I don't even want to think about the number of times I've heard you murmuring her name in your sleep. But for reasons that defy everyone's comprehension except yours, you won't admit it and ask her out. So since we've got fed up of it, you're not leaving here until you show her how you feel, simple as that."

For at least a full minute after Ron had concluded his little speech, Harry could do nothing except goggle at his best friend, while he tried to process this new development. When he was finally capable of coherent thought and speech once more, he tried to shove the much more serious and also quite unthinkable issues raised by Ron's speech aside by focussing on more inconsequential matters.

"Tell me, Ron, how much time did Hermione spend teaching you all that?"

"A while," Ron admitted cheerfully, "But that was because we were doing other things at the same time, mate."

Harry held up a hand to halt Ron.

"I don't want to know!" he said quickly, before Ron could really scar him for life. He might be happy that his two best friends were finally together, but he did not want all the sordid details.

"Just give me back my wand and let me out."

Ron shook his head.

"Sorry mate, like I said, you're not leaving here until you admit to my sister that you love her."

"Ron," Harry said calmly, "I don't fancy your sister."

Alright so that was a lie, Harry could admit it to himself, but it was for the greater good really. Ginny's greater good, that was.

Ron sighed, clearly this was going to be more difficult than they had thought. He mentally wished Ginny luck.

"I don't believe you, mate, and neither does anyone with eyes and half a brain who's seen the way you are around her since the start of the year. But that's not the point of this, if you really want to try that line, try it on my sister when she walks in. For now, my brothers and I have something we need to talk to you about."

Exactly on cue five more red-haired boys walked through the solid door, all looking deadly serious. Suddenly Harry was afraid, very afraid, that he might not be able to claim the title of Boy-Who-Lived much longer. He took a step back, putting himself beyond arms'-reach of Ginny's brothers, even if there was nowhere to run to in this enclosed room.

"Harry," greeted Bill jovially, taking charge since he was the eldest, "My brothers and I have found that it's necessary to have a short chat with you. Now ordinarily we'd just hex anyone who even thought about debauching our sister before she was…oh about twenty. But you, my friend, are a special case."

"A very special case," Fred chimed in, "Because frankly you're practically family."

"Almost like our surrogate brother," George agreed, "Not to mention all the times you've saved our family."

"The simple fact is, Harry," Bill continued as if there had been no interruption, "that you, unlike practically any other member of the male species not directly related to her, have never been anything less than a gentleman to our baby sister. Ron, Hermione and Ginny told us all about the incident with the love potion, and let me tell you that most gentlemen in your position would not have conducted themselves half as well as you did."

Bill paused here, as though expecting some kind of reply, but Harry was too stunned to do or say anything really. The revelation that Ron had caught on to his true feelings for Ginny, coupled with the appearance of all six Weasley brothers had led him to the conclusion that he was in trouble, major trouble for his thoughts concerning their sister. Where were the hexes? Where was the 'you're not nearly good enough for our sister, Potter!' that he had been sure that Ron would come out with if he ever knew? It almost sounded like they…approved, wishful thinking on his part he was sure. There was no way that the Weasley brotherhood would let him date their sister, even if he wanted to, which he did _not_, he reminded himself firmly. He had every intention of ensuring that Ginny went out with someone far worthier. He was just about to voice this intention to the assembled self-appointed guardians of Ginny's virtue when Bill carried on again.

"Anyway the point is that you've earned your shot with Ginny, Harry, so we're not going to hex you yet. Instead if you treat her with anything less than the respect she deserves, or do anything to hurt her, well…I'll be forced to show you exactly Gringotts' Curse Breakers are not people to be messed around with."

"I'll personally feed you to that Horntail you beat back in the Triwizard Tournament," Charlie chimed in.

"Awfully sorry to have to do this to you partner," Fred began.

"But if you don't treat Ginny right…" George continued.

"We'll have no choice but to use you as an involuntary test subject for all our new products before they go on sale," the Twins threatened together.

"And I'll sic Hermione on you, mate," Ron concluded. The other Weasley brothers turned to stare askance at the youngest member of their fraternity, unable to believe he had made such a lame threat. He saw their looks.

"What?" he asked, "She can be right scary when she gets going."

"I heard that, Ronald Weasley!" came a muffled but distinctly female voice from outside.

Ron shrugged.

"See what I mean?"

Harry could not resist chuckling a tad hysterically, this situation was way too surreal. He was fast coming to the conclusion that this was some kind of bizarre dream.

"Anyway, mate," Ron continued, "Now that we've done our brotherly duty, we'll leave you two alone."

The Weasley brothers parted like the proverbial Red Sea to reveal the seventh figure concealed behind them.

Harry had died and gone to Heaven, it was the only rational explanation for the sight that he now beheld. Never in his life had he seen Ginny Weasley looking so regal, so grown-up, so obviously gorgeous. She wore a black evening gown, to call it a dress simply did not do it justice, with not a shoulder strap in sight whose bodice was tailored so closely that Ginny's measurements that it made Harry want to drool rivers. A slender belt studded with small shards of some kind of reflective but dulled stone emphasised her slender waist, and below that the skirts of the dress belled out slightly from her hips to form a waterfall of raven-coloured fabric that reached all the way to the floor. A pair of simple metal earrings dangled from her earlobes, they could have been silver or they could have been polished steel, Harry could not tell the difference and a matching bracelet encircled her right wrist. Her fiery coloured mane was partly gathered up at the back of her head, but with a considerable length falling down behind her shoulders in a sleek straight waterfall of titian tresses. The only make-up she wore was green eye-shadow on her eyelids, and soft pink lipstick. Harry then did something that he had never done in his life before. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Defeater of Voldemort, Slayer of Slytherin's Basilisk, a man who had faced Dementors, Dragons, Merpeople, not to mention psychotic wizards out to kill him, all without flinching, fainted dead away at the sight of Ginny Weasley decked out in all her finery.

The assembled Weasley children stared in shock at the sight of the prone and quite unconscious form of the Boy-Who-Lived for several long moments before Bill turned to Ginny.

"Guess you made an impression, little bit," he said fondly, using the pet-name he had coined for her when they were much younger.

None of them could resist laughing at that.

"Let's put him on the bed, and then we'll leave you to it," Charlie said.

"Actually, Charlie, can you put him in the chair?" Ginny requested, "I have a plan."

The look on her face was sly, but not in a way that was malicious. The Weasley brothers picked Harry up between them and deposited him in the chair in front of the fire. Then they left the couple alone. Once her brothers were safely out of the way, Ginny seated herself in Harry's lap and settled herself to await his second awakening.

Outside in the corridor, in between bouts of laughing like a drain. Ron related the full course of events to the rest of the Gang.

"You should have seen his face, I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head! Then he just keels over, it was brilliant! Harry Potter, Defeater of the Dark Lord, brought low by my baby sister!"

It was teasing material of the highest order, and there was little doubt that Harry would be hearing a great deal about how he fainted at the sight of Ginny for many months to come.

* * *

Harry awoke gradually for the second time with an ache in his head, although this time it was centred in his crown rather than a general ache. He stirred slightly, but a warm weight pressed down on him, preventing him from moving too much.

"Hello, Harry."

The feminine voice caused his eyes to open wide in shock, and he was confronted once again by the sight of Ginny Weasley in a gown that should, in his opinion, be quite illegal given the effect it had on him. He became even more concerned when he realised that the reason for the warm weight and his inability to move was that Ginny was seated squarely in his lap, and cuddled rather too close for comfort. This was exactly that sort of situation that would probably make him do something fairly stupid, like kiss her out of the blue, or blurt out his true feelings. Then he would have to suffer the indignity of having her laugh in his face, not that he would not deserve it, mind you, if he let himself get that out of control. Nevertheless it was better, in his opinion, to try to get out of the situation in the first place rather than risk it.

"Hi, Gin," he said, as casually as he could, trying to pretend that her attire had no effect on him whatsoever, and failing miserably, "Do you think you could move?"

"No," the answer was not what he had expected. It was not combative, or challenging, but it was quite definite.

"No?"

"No," Ginny repeated, then continued matter-of-factly, "I like it here, quite a bit, actually."

"Gin…"

"Harry," she interrupted, "This will be a lot easier, and a lot more fun for both of us if you just give in and admit that you like me now."

"Who told you…? I mean I have no idea what you're talking about," he tried to cover up quickly. Ron was going to die, Harry decided. Surely there was something about keeping secrets and not blabbing them to all and sundry in the code of best friendship, especially secrets concerning feelings by your friend towards your own sister, wasn't there?

"Really?" she asked him, "You don't like me that way? We're nothing more than friends?"

Lying to Ron about his feelings was one thing, lying straight to Ginny's face about it was quite another. It made him feel a lot worse, but really what choice did he have?

"I wouldn't say that. We're good friends, best friends even," he told her, hoping that would still be true shortly.

_Isn't there something about lying in that code of best friendship of yours?_ his conscience asked him slyly, but he silenced the voice ruthlessly. This was a totally different situation. He was looking out for Ginny's welfare in all this.

She cocked her head at him in amusement.

"Really?" she asked again, to which he nodded.

"So I don't affect you that way?"

He shook his head mutely.

"Not even if I do this?" she asked, tightening her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him.

"Nope," he replied, although he was sure that his voice was not normally that unsteady, nor that high.

Her sly smile got wider as she watched his eyes darken with desire despite his vocal denial.

"How about this?" she asked, then proceeded to press her lips against his cheek, right next to the corner of his mouth, "Or this?" she kissed him again moving upwards and back towards his earlobe, then continuing to trail kisses in a line in that direction, asking the same question after each kiss. She got about halfway up his cheek towards his earlobe before he could formulate a response.

"Gin…please…"

This was even worse than the Love Potion Incident, as he had come to call it, because now there was no extenuating circumstance to explain her behaviour. Somehow that made it even more exciting, more intoxicating, more attractive…just _more_. _How_ was it that this girl could have such a profound effect on him? The simple touch of her lips to his skin undid him completely, made him want to confess undying love for her there and then. Was that normal?

"Please what, Harry?" she asked breathily into his ear, and he could not suppress a shudder of pleasure from running through him at the sensation. Her unique flowery scent was filling him up, making thinking difficult.

"Stop…" was the one very strangled word he managed to force out in the midst of the very real battle being waged between his hormones and his rational mind.

"Really?" she asked, tangling her fingers through his hair, "You really want me to stop?"

She knew she was not playing very fair in this. Harry was too much of a gentleman to physically throw her off, and she was taking advantage of that to the fullest, but wasn't all fair in love and war? And this was a little bit of both really. On the other hand perhaps Harry deserved _something_ for the way she was treating him at the moment. She decided to lay things bare, after all she was now the one with certainty about his feelings while he, she realised for the first time, might well have no clue about how she felt. She knew all about that kind of unrequited longing, so she took pity on him.

"I love you, Harry Potter," she whispered in his ear, a shiver running down her spine as she said the words she had been yearning to say since she was a very small child, albeit for very different reasons back then than she had now. Then she had been enamoured by the tale of the Boy-Who-Lived, the chosen hero who had saved them all from a horrible fate. She had envisioned him as a heroic superman, a modern day white knight. It was only in the last three years that she had really gotten to know Harry Potter the man, who hated his title, who loathed fame, who enjoyed a good laugh with his friends, who would do anything for someone he loved, whose dearest ambition was to be completely normal thank you very much. That was the Harry she addressed now, "With all my heart I love you. I want to be your best friend, your girlfriend, your wife, everything. I want to spend the rest of my life by your side."

Harry sat there, thunderstruck by Ginny's declaration. For all the times he had fantasised about hearing such words from her, he had never expected to hear them realised. She loved him! He could hardly believe that he was awake and that this was real. He wanted to leap with sheer joy, he wanted a Dementor so that he could produce the most powerful Patronus in the history of wizardkind. He was grinning like an idiot, so widely that his cheeks hurt. Then his conscience intruded again, reminding him of precisely why he had been under the impression that this particular fantasy would not become reality. Really he wished that his subconscious would make up its mind whether he should be with her or not, because now its admonishments were just getting confusing. Nevertheless the reminder of his personal inadequacies caused his smile to falter.

"I love you too, Gin," he said, and then took a deep breath as launched into by far the most difficult speech of his life to date, "But you deserve better. That's why I didn't…you know…_do_ anything about it. You're so pretty, and clever and…you know. And I'm not anything really. All I've got going for me is the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing, and that's just yesterday's news really. And what with my experiences so far I'll probably be a horrible boyfriend, just ask Parvati. Fighting Voldemort hasn't exactly left me terribly prepared to make any girl happy, and I don't want that for you, you deserve to be happy. So you should go find someone else, someone better."

That last sentence made him feel like he had just torn his heart out, but at least he had been up-front about it. Now they could do the sensible thing, which would be to walk out of here, stay friends, and set about the task of finding Ginny a worthy boyfriend.

For her part Ginny was supremely glad that she had not made the mistake of just switching off after he told her that he loved her too. She could not honestly say that she had not expected something like this, she knew that Harry had a pathological desire to make his friends happy, and that there had to be _some _reason for Harry to keep his feelings to himself. She drew back far enough that she could look him in the eye, fisting one of her hands in his hair, holding him still so that he could not break eye contact. Her refutation of his argument, was simple, quiet, and to the point.

"Name me one person who you think is 'better' for me than you are."

Harry gulped as he lost himself to the twin, dark pools of infinity that were currently masquerading as Ginny's eyes. He only barely registered her challenge at all. This was totally unfair, he _knew_ that there were a whole raft of people out there much better boyfriend material than he was, and if he had five minutes or so he might even be able to name one or two, but other things were occupying his brain at the moment, like the wonderful feel of her upper body pressed against him, or the gentle motions of her free hand through his hair, tracing absent patterns across his scalp, or the tickling sensation of her exhalations against his face. After the aforementioned five minutes had passed, Harry was continuing to draw a blank. For some reason the small part of his brain that remained functional didn't seem to want to co-operate with him, insisting that bringing up the names of other boys in Ginny's company was a Bad Idea, because she might actually take notice of them and leave him alone. He tried to argue with himself that that was the whole point, that she would be much happier if she did exactly that, but for some reason his mind refused to co-operate. So much for his so-called nobility then. Eventually, Ginny got tired of waiting for the name that she was fairly certain would never appear. She kissed his cheek again.

"See Harry? _You_ are best for me. Even you know it, you just won't admit it, and I don't understand why. We'll both be so much better off if you do."

"I just…I'm just trying to make sure you're happy, Gin," Harry said, not entirely sure why he was saying this, but feeling the need to say _something_, "Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you love someone? Make sure they're as happy as they can be?"

"Oh, Harry," she sighed, "Yes it is, but what made you think that I _wouldn't_ be happy with you?"

"Well there was that time with Parvati at the Yule Ball, I'm surprised she still talks to me at all. And then there was that whole fiasco with Cho Chang. I made her _cry_, Gin. I don't think I could live with myself if I did that to you."

"Well I hope you don't mean that, because we will probably fight, and I'm sure I'll cry over something at _some_ point."

"Never," Harry declared, "I'll never fight with you about anything."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Harry, disagreements are natural."

"I don't care," Harry remained stubborn.

"By Circe, Harry, we _will_ fight! It's not something to be _afraid_ of!"

"We will _not_!"

She smiled suddenly.

"We already are," she informed him slyly. He opened his mouth to retort, but could not. She was right. He hung his head, he hadn't even lasted a full minute into his promise. He was really, _really_ terrible at this. Her hand in his hair pulled gently, lifting his head until he was meeting her gaze once more.

"This is where we kiss and make up."

"Merlin, Gin, I'm sorry, I'm really pathetic at this…"

"_Harry_," she interrupted him. He looked at her questioningly.

"_Kissing_ and making up."

"Right," he said, "Sorry, I just…"

"_Harry!_"

He closed his mouth with an audible click of teeth coming together, pantomimed sealing it shut with one hand, and then put that same hand to the back of her head, drawing her in. Her eyes slid closed as their lips met and she put everything into expressing just what she felt for this charmingly innocent, totally clueless young man in a language that transcended the power of mere words.

For his part, Harry was totally caught up in the incredible feeling of the second kiss he had ever shared with Ginny. He recalled very well the first one, during the Love Potion Incident, and now suddenly he understood that comment Professor Slughorn had made back in Sixth Year about the difference between potion-inspired obsession and real love. This kiss left that first one to pale in insignificance by comparison. It was beyond bliss, beyond pleasure, he wanted to stop time and enjoy this moment forever, because it was inconceivable that anything else could ever feel so good.

Eventually the need for air forced the pair to part very reluctantly, and more than a little breathlessly.

"See, Harry? Fighting isn't all that bad," Ginny commented while breathing heavily.

"I guess not," he replied, "But let's not do it too often. I may not know much, but I know that good relationships don't explode every five minutes."

"True," she said, then paused for a moment before carrying on, "You do realise what you just admitted and asked, don't you?"

"What?" sometimes Harry really had no idea what Ginny was talking about, "Gin I have…oh."

The penny had dropped.

"The answer's yes, by the way," she told him, smiling again. He looked very cute when he was flustered. He smiled self-deprecatingly.

"I never really had a chance, did I?" he asked.

"Not really," she informed him cheerfully, "We've belonged to each other since the Chamber, Harry. You ruined me for any other boy when you saved my life, and I could understand you after that, understand what you were going through with Voldemort. But be honest with yourself. Would you really want that chance?"

"No, I suppose I wouldn't."

"Excellent, now that that's out of the way, what are we going to do with the rest of our weekend, Mr Potter?"

"What do you mean?"

"That door," she indicated the only entrance or exit from the room, "can only be opened from the outside. Ron and the rest of my brothers thought it would take me a bit longer than this to convince you, and they wanted to give us some time alone anyways. Everyone else agreed. No one is even going to check on us until Sunday afternoon, except for Dobby, who'll bring us food. What are we going to do between now and then?"

"Well I think we should take the time to further our relationship, Miss Weasley."

"Sounds like a _brilliant_ idea, Harry," she beamed up at him. Then her smile turned rather naughty, and he did not miss the flick of her eyes towards the bed. He got a sudden flash of déjà vu back to the Love Potion Incident. He backtracked hastily.

"Errr, can we wait, Gin?"

"Wait?" it was her turn to be slightly confused, "Well we don't have much choice, do we? I can't open that door any more than you can."

"No," he tried to clarify without spelling it out, "I saw you look at the…I mean can we _wait_?"

"What…? _Oh_!" her eyes got rather wide and round, "Wait!"

Her face took on a slightly hurt expression that made Harry feel horribly guilty.

"You don't want to?"

"You have no idea," he assured her sincerely, "Just…not yet."

"Can I ask why?" she was blushing, and he was blushing as a response to _her _blushing.

"I guess it's…kind of silly," he mumbled, "Just that I wanted to…I thought maybe…wedding night."

Her eyes got _really_ wide at those last two words.

"Oh Harry!" she flung her arms around him with renewed vigour and planted a swift kiss on his lips, "That's so romantic, and _so_ sweet!"

"You don't mind?" he asked with some concern, "I know most guys are supposed to want…well…that is…you get the idea," he trailed off a bit lamely.

"I waited eight years to date you, Harry Potter, I can wait a little longer for that," she said, smiling fondly at him, "Besides it _is_ quite romantic."

He just smiled weakly, happy that he hadn't terminally embarrassed both of them, and that it hadn't sent Ginny into the arms of another more willing man.

"So what _shall_ we do with the rest of our weekend, then?" she asked again.

"Well," Harry said, looking around the room and noting the time on the clock on the wall, "Why don't you tell me who 'everyone else' is, and how exactly we wound up in here? Then I was thinking we could have a little romantic lunch, and maybe sit together here again afterwards. I mean just because we're not going _all_ the way doesn't mean we can't do…other stuff."

"I _like_ the way you think, Mr Potter," Ginny said, her mischievous smile returned.

"So, how _did_ you plan all this out?" Harry asked, genuinely curious.

"Well," Ginny began, settling herself further into Harry's lap and resting her head on his shoulder, "It actually all started a couple of weeks before Halloween…"

_Finis_

So, what's your final verdict? Good or bad, I'd love to have your opinions.


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